Texans-Raiders, Rockets-Pelicans, Dolphins make a big change

Thursday on The A-Team, Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton preview Texans-Raiders, look ahead to Rockets-Pelicans, weigh in on the mess in Miami, and more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In Houston, Texas.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is a Thursday edition of the A Team WEX
over there, AC right here, Josh Jordan along for the ride.
As per usual, we are taking you until six o'clock tonight.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
What's wrong already? Who sits here? Well? Nobody? Yeah, I
thought so.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
You guys have to understand that every time WEX walks
into this room, particularly on a day after the show
before us has no one in here, because you know
Ross is off and Matt is on the road.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
He has to get his bearings.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
And the way that works is anything that is even
remotely out of place to his liking is going to
sit beings.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
This microphone sits in front of a specific seat, host
seat one. Nobody stands over there. Why would the mic
ever be over there?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
That's all. It is very simple, And what.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I was gonna say is that it'll send him into
a very silent, but very steady rage.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I'm smiling. I know you're doing very well.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I appreciate that we and I'm assuming you're just getting
in from Texans situations.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yes, normally I would leave much earlier, but today was
one of those cool days where they give the bikes
away to the kids. Yes, right, when they come off
the field, the kids are there, they take it to
the bikes, they show them out or get on the
bike their helmets ride the bikes. I did see a
Texan riding a bike, which one I don't want to
out them because it's against this contract. It was actually
jokingly explicitly said by Hannah to us earlier. What did

(01:27):
she say, we don't want them on the bike.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Okay, yeah, No, I've never understood how some athletes are
allowed to do some things.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
I mean, we're all joking here.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
It's really cool event, and obviously this is all in
preparation for the upcoming game battle Red Unis Raiders in
Town by the way, Thursday practice the one that we
usually base a lot of what we'll see on Sunday
in terms of attendance on by the way.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yes, well, okay, am I wrong? And I know this
is a terrible question for somebody like you. But they
came out with their new uniforms last season, all of them,
all versions of the uniforms they wear, were the brand
new ones. I don't recall them wearing the battle Red
ones more than once. This is the first time this
will happen.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Correct, Yeah, I don't know what the rules are on
all that, because they are putting out the jerseys they
already wore or they didn't wear them. They put out
a set of jerseys I forgot what they call them,
the Bills, and seven other teams did that earlier this year.
The Texans will get their version of it next year.
Oh it's another version, so I think because they didn't

(02:33):
have that one this year, maybe it opened the door
for probably a choice of whatever other jersey wanted.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
To wear, because like for example, which by the way,
jersey talk on this show is far too prominent for
what E like it too.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
But I don't care because I love this stuff. It
is to me. First of all, they're all fantastic. The
new ones.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
I know there was a little bit of a hubbub
about the blue looking black and the tame we.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Can go with the look good, feel good, play good.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
I'm okay with that, Yeah, but I like these are
slick jerseys. Every version they have right now is has
been done very well. And since we're on the topic
of the red ones, I'm with you. The helmets are stupid, awesome,
just amazing. It's the candy, it's the glitter, it's the

(03:20):
type of red that they are.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, six of the players I didn't get to see
wearing them yesterday, we're out of practice today wearing them.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Did anybody practice today?

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Since everybody didn't practice yesterday, I tried to and I
think we did a good job here. There's no reason
for angst yesterday that you had eight guys not practicing,
two guys limited, and one player who's listed as full
but still not even off the injured reserve.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Just the practice window.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
The only players of any concern are the eight players
that didn't practice. Six of them are on the field today.
All of them are going to be available for the game.
It's the two that did not practice that I don't
think we expected them to either. And yet, in Woody
Mark's case, this he's not practice Wednesday and Thursday doesn't
mean he won't play, doesn't mean he won't show up
at tomorrow's practice, even on a limited basis. I think

(04:02):
he's shown a pretty good ability to have it figured out.
What do I need to do and what does the
athletic performance staff need to do to get him ready
for Sunday? And keep in mind this past Sunday he
left the game after a little over a quarters worth
of play and stayed on the sidelines the rest of
the game as an if needed, he could still go
back out there. They did not have to do that

(04:23):
because his replacement ran for one hundred and one yards
and they were winning handily.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Woody Marx was catching strays on the Matt Thomas Show today,
I'm like, easy, how so I just basically denigrating anything
he's done this year that he's not good all this time?
I'm like, you don't need you don't need Saquon Barkley
for this team to win.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
I mean it'd be nice.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
They also did not have Saquon Barkley last week. True
for those that might think, well, I mean he's starting
this week, right, I mean every you can get, Jarl
Jawar's getting all the carries this week, right, Easy.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I mean they've got a they've they've got, they've.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Got what, They've gotten a lot of positions on that
side of the football serviceable players for this year that
need to be upgraded in the offseason.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
And I don't know necessarily that I would go solow
and call him just serviceable. I think you'll if you
can do a lot with your roster and spending a
lot at that particular position. When you do that, sometimes
you just overcoming your trying to overcome your other problems.
And honestly, the signing of Saquon Barkley here in Houston
would have been exactly that. Saquon Barkley, He's gonna succeed

(05:27):
behind any line, he's awesome. Or you could get a
good line, you could play good offensively, you could open
holes for Jawar Jordan, Woody Marks and whomever else is
on the roster, and all of a sudden, you're paying
nothing for your running game. I mean, Woody Marks has
got a middle of the draft four year contract, Jawar
Jordan has a second year free agent contract. I'm down

(05:47):
for that pay scale at that position as they upgrade
elsewhere on offense, and we'll see what's out there. Nick
Chubb again practice today, And like I said at Denny
go Autry, Aziz Al Shaier, Kamari Lassiter, you had a
host with players EJ. Speed that did not practice yesterday,
but we did not believe their situations were awful. And
I think seeing them today at practice indicated just as.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Much, well we're gonna Matt Burke was speaking, he might
actually still be up there. As a matter of fact,
he was speaking a few minutes ago before the show started.
That's a guy that I don't look to the defense
to have to win the Texans the game this week.
It's just not that kind of matchup. Definitely that kind
of matchup. Probably next week.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
I'm okay saying any amount of points the Raiders score,
the Texans.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Will score more.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah, I don't feel like the Cardinals put twenty on him.
Most teams on average, don't. Texans had no trouble doubling
that put it this way.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Our itinerary this weekend, as my holiday sabbatical begins tomorrow,
has us driving home from Dallas Sunday morning. Now, it's
great that the Texans are playing later, but I still
want to get home in front of my screen for
that first window of games. But I'm just like, I'm
not It's not like I'm gonna be sweating it if

(07:01):
for some reason we leave town late and I can't
imagine us playing Like if this were a noon kick
is where this would more apply. But I just this
is I don't know that I've felt about any contest
this entire season that it's as close to automatic.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
I know, I shouldn't say a little bit of a
wet blanket on that.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Okay, pretty unlikely they're gonna do what they did last
week three minutes up ten?

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Why not?

Speaker 3 (07:26):
I can play the game touchdown, first kickoff for your
coverage team. Turnover playing from uptar fifty seven minutes left
is rare.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
What if you score?

Speaker 2 (07:36):
What if you score a touchdown on that second turn
on that first turnover in that second possession.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, there's a lot of things that could help. But
just again, you don't have to score on the second play.
Put together a six or seven minute drive against their defense,
put a touchdown on the board, and then kick off.
Maybe you might even not lose the coin flip, you know,
the Raiders might not call it correctly like the Cardinals
did a week ago.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Do you think of the Texans win the toss, they defer,
let's go ahead and get this three out, three and out?

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, I think too. I think I would do that
against any opponent all season long.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
So yeah, the defense and what Matt Burke has to
say about his crew will certainly be a topic. We
will have Emai Udokah's thoughts from the Matt Thomas Show earlier.
We're also going to have a little bit more from
that podcast of Fred van Vlietz that Kdie joined because
Rockets are in action tonight. Finally, now we back at
it in New Orleans in the Big Easy taking on

(08:27):
the Pelicans. They have not played them this year. They
have five wins coming into tonight's game. They're not very good.
They have some kind of bright spots I guess on
their roster, definitely one in their center. But this should
be a game that the Rockets put away handily, and
hopefully it's one of those where the starters or a
lot of the starters are resting in the fourth quarter.

(08:50):
But we'll both be involved in getting you ready for
that later on tonight, along with Matt Thomas.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
And there are some interesting.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Tidbits on an MLB free agency as it pertains to
not one but two ex astros.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
What are people hearing? Where will they land?

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Are the my favorite off season articles What I'm hearing? Yeah, exactly,
Well they're better than the what I'm hearing posts on
the X platform.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
What are those people saying?

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Well, those are worse that they are less certain of
what they're hearing. If you actually sit down and write
an article about it, and get it published by the
Athletic or whoever you work for. Then you're trying to
try to give people some information. Now, if you bury
that Aaron Judge is having catastrophic surgery in the fiftieth
line at the end of your article, then you're probably lying.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
But most of the stories are pretty good, yea, if
you have to dig for the needle in the haystack.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Also a little college football conversation coming up at three
point thirty. Taylor mccagu is going to join us on
the phone lines. It's it's underway this weekend. It's begun
all of the fun stuff on the college.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
The elimination portion of the playoffs begins.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, the actual not these lame conference championship games. I'm
just kidding, sort of lame at least in comparison to
playoff games. So yeah, all of that and a whole
lot more coming your way on a Thursday edition of
the program.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Oh and by the way, Quinn, yours still starting and.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Mike McDaniel meets with the Meatya on Thursday. Guys, I've
had a change of heart.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Well, we are gonna hear from Mike McDaniel in that
vein on his new starter. I hate to even say
it because I I it's it is fascinating to me
that they're coming off of winning four games in a
row and then they lose this game, and that's when
they put their too how many how much did he
make in his contract? Two hundred and fifty neighborhood of
that's where they that's where they decide that he's not

(10:37):
their second string anymore.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
He's now their third string quarterback. Well, usually when you
bench a guy, that's what you do. I know, it's
just funny to me to to.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
The guy who was second both times is miffed also like,
hey man, what about me.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
I'm just knning stopped over. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
So all of that and more coming up on a
Thursday edition seem rolling along on a Thursday edition of
the program.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Wow, this is like weird.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Twice this week you and I are involved in local
Rockets pregame and so it's going to consist of the
three of us hanging out.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
I'm just now telling you this for the.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Actual game tonight when you're on the network, because I'm
not gonna I'm not taking equipment with me back to
my house and then going on vacation.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
I'm not gonna do that because I don't want to
bring it back player.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Well, you know what, you and Josh she are enjoyable
to watch a Rockets game with awesome.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
I'm looking forward to it. I had a feeling that
might be the case. Not floored by that information. Are
we going in different directions for dinner again tonight? Are
we going to be a unified team? Uh, it's gonna
be weird because.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Of the time. Will not be a unified team most likely.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
By the way, I wanted to talk about that situation,
and I meant to yesterday. What situation the situation of
what you consumed for dinner the other night?

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Chicken? No, don't, don't try and I ate.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
Chicken and potatoes with a soda. This guy, this guy
right here, I'll probably do something very similar tonight.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Constantly tells me that my choice in snack foods is
for children. Was sitting there with a straight face, unironically
eating chicken nuggets the other night.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
That's children's food on that menu. You know that, right?
You don't agree. I do not agree.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
You go to McDonald's every example, every restaurant that serves
chicken nuggets, which is a lot of them, like almost
one hundred percent nuggets. Yeah, that's the kid aspect. Why
is it a kid's aspect? Because there how many kids?

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Do you know?

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Get them get a twenty piece or even a thirty
piece from some establishment I made you get the other night.
I got more than enough for several kids. But I'm
an adult. So wait, if I eat a bunch of goldfish?
Is that okay? Judging on or based on this logic?

Speaker 1 (12:52):
No, you're comparing goldfish to chicken nuggets, not apples. Yes,
I knew you'd. All right, let's give back on track.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
So the Texans and Raiders getting together over at NRG
this Sunday. It's a three twenty five kick, by the way,
because well, I don't know why I think that if
you were to talk about the Raiders and we're gonna
hear from their head coach Pete Carroll, who maybe.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Won and done, you still think that might happen. I
one hundred percent think it could happen.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
The only reason you wouldn't do it is because you
don't want to saddle the next guy with a terrible
roster that he's gonna lose with. If you think there's
some benefit to burying the guy who's already there for
another season. I don't know what that would be, because
I just go ahead and get started on whatever I
want to build. I'd have some belief and the guy
that Tom hired as his GM a buddy of his,
someone he's very familiar with. Just get started, and if

(13:44):
your program is gonna win soon, which every NFL team
should have a plan to do, then go ahead and
hire a coach you think you can win with. And
I would assume they know that. You know, I don't
mean it in this way, but you've got it. How
long did you think Pet Carroll is going to be there?
You probably thought he was going to be there long
enough for the rebuild to be complete. Well, you've just
made zero progress. You probably went backwards. So now you've

(14:07):
extended the time potentially to when you're actually going to compete.
And in the Raiders case, this absolutely matters. For the
Raiders to get better, all they have to do is
beat a quarterback going into his third year and will
be in the playoffs in both of his first two years.
They'll have to beat Sharon Moore's former Bosses team, and
they'll have to beat the Mahomes List Chiefs they're a

(14:30):
fourth place team in it by a lot. With three
teams that go to the playoffs almost every year. I mean,
they're going to be much closer to the Chiefs and
the standings this year just by happenstance to.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
A certain degree.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
But the other two teams are twelve win teams, thirteen
win teams, fourteen win teams that are on your.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Schedule twice a year.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
You can still you can make the playoffs as a
last place team, by the way, I think people realize
that since there's three wildcard team's pretty hard to do.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
But it can't happen. But it's pretty unlikely. Your division
has to be the best in football, though, so.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
The Raiders are going to have to be better than
somebody in their division first before they really start making
any progress.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
And they're not really very close to anybody. No, they
can't even start with the baby steps.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yeah, the simple answers, I wouldn't have hired him, and
I would cut my losses right now. It was not
Pete Carroll's fault, but that's not who I want as
my head coach.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
It was a very well, it's a very peculiar thing
that two of the principal pieces of that Seattle juggernaut,
which was brief but very effective, found their way to
the AFC West for their next stop. Russell Wilson in
Denver and now Pete Carroll here in Las Vegas, and
both of them might be one and done with their
respective franchises.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, it was in the case of Russell Wilson that
was I don't know. I'm not sure what management in
Denver was thinking, what they thought they might still get.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
It's all on tape.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
It's the reason why Seattle was ready to move on
from him, and it was the right decision, even though
it was a little bit costly on their end. It
turned out to be outrageously costly on Denver's end. What
Denver's done is amazing two years of Russell Wilson and
then until tu again it's released. If that happens, well,
the answer to the question who's eating the most dead
money and what player was a result of is going

(16:05):
to remain. Russell Wilson two years in Denver had the
meeting eighty five million in dead cap space, because then
he was that hard to win with there. He only
had one down year, real down year in Seattle, but
Seattle watched it unfold and said it's time. So they
moved on from him. As he entered his age thirty
four season, played two years in Denver. It was not

(16:26):
they their team, and I said this while he was there.
I thought their roster was fine. His play was poor.
His play was very poor.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
He was the reason.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
He was absolutely the reason. And it's the same thing
that happened in New York. Why he got benched in
New York because they had Jackson Dart. It's because he
was playing the way he was playing. They were lucky
that they had somebody to play over him, and it
was smart to draft him.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Cautionary tale is not the correct term, but this is
whatever the kind of first cousin of that term is
when it comes to showing everybody else around the NFL
that it's not only okay to cut bait if you've
made a mistake, as opposed to what teams normally do,
which is, well, we've invested this, this time, this money
some semblance of both. No, you can cut bait and

(17:12):
in two years, in this case, you can have the
best record in football.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah, it's coaches and players cutting bait with them obviously
is totally different, because I don't believe the NFL or
any league has yet institute today's salary cap on how
many coaches you can pay it one time. Some teams
pay several. It doesn't matter to an owner of an
NFL team. If you signed Pete Carroll to the three
year deal worth thirty nine million, and he works there
for one year, you just pay him the rest. That's
just the way it goes. Texans did it with coach Cully.

(17:37):
He signed a multi year deal here. They didn't lose
an ounce or a second of sleep. They paid him
twenty two million. They're not coach here. It's a zero
consequence to them. It doesn't change how they have to operate.
They don't have to cut back in other areas. They
don't have to scale back the amount of awesome food
that comes out of their cafeteria.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
They don't say, hey, now, CJ, I know you've got.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
A lot of friends around the league, and there's a
lot of Iowa state players on the teams we play,
but we just cannot afford you to do a jersey
swap after all these games because we only have we
can't afford to buy jerseys every week. Man and you
can't change shoes every game. I mean, we need you
to wear them three, four, six times a year. I mean,
we're trying to figure out how to make this work
because we're And obviously when they hired Demko, they were

(18:17):
paying three coaches, right, they were still paying come, they
were still paying Lovey, and now they began to pay
Tomiko Rans. In the case of Russell Wilson, it's just
a matter of what what do you see and how
how are you gonna win? And this will be It's
already happened. The New York Giants said we can't play
him anymore, after the Steelers said we can't play him anymore,
after the Broncos said we can't play him anymore, after
the Seahawks said we can't play him anymore. Now, granted,

(18:39):
this is one of the big reasons why I still
think Mike Tomlin not being the Steelers coach moving forward
is just asenine. He got to the playoffs with Russell Wilson,
He's winning games with Kenny Pickett and Mason Rudolph and
just a slop of quarterbacks, and now they might even
win a home game in the postseason for all we know.
If they end up winning this division, which they can
do a lot on that end if they get there,

(19:01):
win this weekend.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Well, here in the first hour, we're for Aaron Rodgers today.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah, no, we will. We're gonna hear from both coaches
on the opposing defense, and we'll start with Demiko Ryans
because he was talking about not only the Raiders defense,
but specifically Max Crosby and that was yesterday and this
is what he had to say.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah, when it comes to the Raiders defense, Max Crossby
definitely sticks out amongst that defense.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
He's a very disruptive.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Player run game, in past game, he does a really
good job playing with good effort finishing. So he's a
guy we're definitely have to have awareness for where he is.
He all aligned at both sides at any given time,
so we have to know where he is and we
have to make sure you know, we're outworking him. We
gotta get hands on him, we gotta finish him. He's
a good player.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
We got good players. We just got out working.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
I don't think there was an accidental choice of words.
Out Working him is very very hard to do. This
is a super duper high energy player who also Zessa's
massive strength he's super talented. He could be a low
effort player and he would be very good. But he
is not a low effort player, even playing for a
Raiders team that most weeks, when they hit the field,

(20:10):
they probably already know the result. He sits on the
pass rush win rate rankings fourteenth, Daniel Hunters sixteenth. Will
Anderson Junior is third among edge rushers in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
I'd rather have two than one, and the Texans do
and the Vegas Raiders do not.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, I think it's you, you neutralize, contain, whatever you
want to call it him.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
You're gonna be.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah, they would be smart, and they have been smart
over the last handful of games and really throughout his
entire career. He's not just gonna sit over there on
the right side of the left side and you know,
Ursery or Brown and the chips and the tight ends
are gonna oh okay, well next play.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Next He's going to move around. He's going to make
the life difficult for the Texans, just like he does
every single week. We'll hear more from Demiico.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
We're also, as I mentioned, going to hear from Pete
Carroll on the Texans defense coming up before the end
of this hour. But it's too we will have what
we always do this time of day. It's the best
of cks straight ahead.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Post an every single day, and you're the best of
breaking the entire.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Ton well normally, and again we can still do it
of the social media variety. Normally, this would be where
we would go to the streets of social media and
find something fantastic to get into, and technically that's what
we're gonna do here. There's breaking news from the forty acres.

(21:36):
He's back. He's back, Texas fans coach Boom is back.
At least that's the first comment after I saw this
particular version of the news.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
What does he do for the staff? Coach Boom? He
brings the boom?

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Oh so he is a Texas cowboy guy, shoots off
the cannon.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, super spur. Maybe I think he does a little
bit more than that. I think his job description is
a little bit more compact.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
Well, Longhorn fans, get except out of ac is about
to tell you who coach Boom is.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Texas has fired their defensive coordinator Pete tom How do
you say it, kwiat Kowski? Yeah, that, and they've hired
Will must Champ he's back now. He was on Mac
Brown's staff. No, when he was there for the first time,

(22:24):
Who was he under Who's the head coach?

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Was it? Max?

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Well, usually you could figure that out by picturing some videos,
your sideline videos you've seen now, Who was he yelling
at the loudest, which player was coming off the field,
which head coach was to his left or to his
right that he was screaming down. He was the DC
and a linebackers coach for the Longhorns for three seasons
between eight and twenty ten, and then he got to run.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
The whole show at Florida. How'd that go? Well?

Speaker 3 (22:47):
He got another job after that, he ran the whole
show at South Carolina. He has absolutely and this obviously
doesn't do anything to enhance it. He is absolutely someone
who wears this means more underwear. He's worked for LS Yeah, Texas, Florida,
South Carolina, obviously, Georgia where he was on staff again.

(23:08):
Uh there prior to this season, and played at Georgia
and is from Georgia back to the forty acres.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Huh, Well, that's what I'm seeing. Unless this is a
rumor that's wrong. Oh okay, well I thought it was
breaking new. I thought it was probably trustworthy. Oh, I'm
sure it is.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
What's just I mean the reaction for the most part
in the comments is shock.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
I mean Texas Football posted it. I know that's not
what I'm looking at right now. Yes, it's real. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Uh, the reaction is mixed. One guy says backwards momentum.
I'm sorry, but like the best version of Will muss
Champ was when he was at Texas, right, there have
been enough.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
I mean, he's not gonna get hired this many times
over if people don't think he's good at his job,
and I think that, you know, there have been some
down years he obviously not had long stays and numerous
occasions many times that was because somebody else wanted him.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
But yeah, he's been fired before, he'll get fired again.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
I think a Sark and must Chant marriage is intriguing
at the very least and could be very, very fruitful.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
It's pretty interesting.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
I'd be curious, and obviously we'll have Taylor mccagan just
under an hour and we'll definitely broach that subject. What
were the negative vibes from what they felt like they
maybe did not do this year because personnel wise, I
don't think too many people were. I think everybody expected
them to be unbelievable, and I think opening up the
season the way they did against I still think this
is silly to say, but they gave it to me,
so I'll say it against a finalist for the Heisman Trophy,

(24:39):
Julian saying in his first game ever. They played really
well on that night, and there was a sign of
things to come. There are a lot of games where
they played exceptionally well. Is that they didn't utilize some
of their talent as well as they thought they might
have been able to with Simmons and Hill and taff
at least at the collegiate level. They I mean they
had a talented defense. I thought they played it as
a talented defense. Obviously they I have expectations to do more.

(25:02):
Duyna Keina was also let go. He's been at Texas
multiple times. This was the second tour of duty there.
So there will be some significant changes in the way
they play, for sure. And if we see any more
pregame shoving matches between stadium staffers and a coach on
the Longhorn staff, it probably won't be coach Sark this time.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
It will probably be Coast Muchtown.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
I have the dumbest comment that I've found so far,
and this guy follows me apparently, so I'm about to
really insult somebody. Apparently this is from at age Town
underscore Aggie all that to go seven and five and
lose to Little Brother hashtag gigem bro. Did you watch
the last game they played? They didn't even win this year,

(25:45):
their best year in like fifty. They didn't beat Texas
but their little brother.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
I'm confused.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
This is an Aggie saying you did all this hiring
Will mus Champ, all that to go seven and five
and lose to Little Brother meaning the Aggies.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Oh so in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, I guess that's what I'm saying. Did you not
see the last time these two teams?

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Just the last time? How about the time before that,
time before that and the time before that.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Defensively, specifically, they played tremendous defense against the Aggies two
years ago at Caylefield. Obviously they did the same thing
this year against the same quarterback, the same head coach.
I presume a much better team. I think the Aggies
were significantly better this year. We'll watch them play this
weekend because of it. I wonder if there's there's a
specific reason on the timing aspect. The Longhorns haven't played

(26:33):
a football game in weeks. The Longhorns have a football
game in two weeks. Why did you do this today?
It's not a typical. It's not a typical time to
be It's extremely atypical for a team in a regular
old bowl game to fire a coordinator after they've been

(26:53):
on the field practicing for I don't know, five to
six to seven practices since the season ended, getting ready
for this game. That's I mean, I don't I have
not paid much attention to their staff because I figured
anything that was going to happen would have happened already.
I'm paying more attention to which players have declared for
the draft and are entering the portal and what they'll
have on the field when they get to the cheese
At Bowl in uh In, Florida against a team who

(27:17):
has an.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Interim my favorite ball, the cheese At Bowl.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, this is it's a very interesting decision, and I
don't think it's I don't personally think it's a step backwards.
I think no, if the resume speaks for stuff, I
don't think kwat Kowski had a bad resume either. I
also don't think he had a bad five year run
in Austin. Me personally, obviously, Stark disagree.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
I think it's a I think it's a great hire.
I might be ended up being proven wrong, but there
are definitely worst options that they could have done at
this particular coordinator position.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yeah, he's been a DC or a head coach for
the most part for twenty years in the.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Mean to me, just to kind of sum this up
going into the break, I feel like next season for
the Longhorns, whether you're talking about Arch, whether you're talking
about the offense, while you're talking about the defense, just
overall with this program is what all the hype people
were thinking it was going to be this year. That's
what you're actually going to get in twenty twenty six.

(28:15):
And so the question would be, is this a move
that would in any way keep that from happening? And
I think it's completely the opposite. I think twenty twenty six,
the Texas Longhorns are poised to be championship material again.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
Well, Arch Banning will be back, they will have plenty
of talent. I'm sure we don't even know what the
portal possibilities might be for them. Their offensive line was
probably the biggest concern heading into this year, and it
kind of played out that way. By the end of
the season was a significantly better unit. And presumably the
returnees next year, which weren't returnees this year, will play
a little bit better and it'll set things in motion

(28:48):
for them to be able to put more points on
the board in SEC play, maybe make life a little
bit easier on the defense. Defense is a top fifteen
defense the previous two seasons in points allowed. This year
they were twenty third, which is about where they've been
over the last four years. And when he got there,
obviously they needed to be significantly better, which, like I said,
it appeared like they had. Maybe it just didn't match

(29:09):
the talent. Maybe they just thought their talent was even
better than that. It's also just year two in the SEC,
maybe a little spoiled by year one in the SEC,
they had the third fewest points allowed in the country.
It's a pretty lofty goal for any team playing in
the SEC weekend and week out against that competition, and
this year it's a nine game SEC slave.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
So that's very interesting news.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
We'll talk more about that and about maybe the reasons
why I hate to think. There are people out there
and maybe I'm one of them that thinks, yeah, that
is odd. Timing is a strange move to make. Was
there something else we had Ohio's coach fired in the
last twenty four to thirty six hours, and people are
wondering exactly if the statement that we've heard from the

(29:52):
team is accurate, and if it is really you fired
him over this, or is there more? Kind of hard
not to ask that question in light of what's been
going on elsewhere, and just because they are they're slightly
tied to that team because they're about to play them,
not tied to them, but maybe part of the similar story.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
So we'll see.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Get ready for a lot of blitzing Longhorn fans, if
you recall, probably see a bunch more moving forward.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
The A team on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Ninety Thursday edition of the eighteen Sports Talk seven ninety.
Of all the things I randomly bring up on the show,
video games are definitely.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
One that wex is. That's one of his favorites.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Let's listen to I did not cut my teeth. Even
to this day, you have not any teeth. You have
cut my teeth on video game systems that don't exist anymore.
They still have Ataris. I actually cut my That was
at my friend's house. He had the Atari. I had
the Odyssey. What the heck is an Odyssey?

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Bingo?

Speaker 5 (30:50):
Was that?

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Like the alternative just was different, Like if somebody had
a Nintendo and then somebody had a Sega?

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Is that this similar?

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Except Atari was a little more dominant over Odyssey than
those in that.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
I've never heard of it until today. I was today
years old. I played a lot of Pitfall in the
Atari is Pitfall the awful brand position of Pong, which
was an Atari game. No, I mean no, not really.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
This song is as lame as it gets, but we
didn't know any better at the time.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Is this like when you go to the grocery store
and you get loops of fruit instead of fruit loops?
I guess so, yes, there is nothing like just go
it's sugar, just buy the real thing.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
There's an area section of the aisle but carries the
the cereals that you can tell Yeah, here's a whild
of sugar.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah, they're in a bag that too. That's the off brand.
That's the knockoff. My favorite I just went so.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
You know, Teresa does not allow him to consume this
very much, but the other day she's like, he wanted
lucky charms for whatever reason. Or First of all, are
you aware that they now put oversized rainbow marshmallows.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
We had this discussion a few weeks back, and you
have the.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah, they can put oversize anythings in there. They can
put undersized anything in there as long as there are marshmallows.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm going to hate them.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
What kind of cereal killer monster are you who hates
marshmallows and cereal?

Speaker 3 (32:06):
The marshmallows in that cereal are abhorrent? How untasty and gross?

Speaker 1 (32:13):
They're made of sugar.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
They taste even if you don't like the texture, which
is what it sounds like, hate it. Now, welcome to
my world when it comes to mayonnaise. Now you understand, okay,
that's how you feel strongly about that.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
That's the same thing.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
Marshmallows as an actual food item, when it's not doctored
to go in a bag inside a box and sold
this cereal are fine? Do you ever think of the
marshmallows that they've doctored to be prepared in this cereal box?

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Are disgusting with I'm sure dyes, they're not supposed to
contain you ever think?

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Also, i mean, who eats marshmallows anyway? Is it on
top of this dish? Is it on top of this
sweet or are you making s'mores? Otherwise? What is a
marshmallow good for? Well, it depends on what marshmallow you're
talking about. Those marshmallows in the bags, the ones you
any size, there's there's squishy. I'm just saying, like, I'm
amazed that this is a somewhat like it's almost useless

(33:08):
this food product. It's in s'mores and there are a
few like on a Thanksgiving there are some sweet potato
recipes that will use them. All right, Well, if you're
camping or it's November twenty seventh, otherwise, who needs them?

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Have you ever played the game Chubby Bunny?

Speaker 6 (33:26):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Is that how many of those stupid food items you
can fit inside of your mouth without.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Choking to death? Yeah? Once you play that, this is
a good chance You're I'm never gonna want one again.

Speaker 7 (33:37):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (33:37):
What did you do one already? Did you keeps awful?
Did you ever?

Speaker 5 (33:41):
Well?

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Those are awful? You're right?

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Did you ever Bob for apples as a kid, I mean,
what else did you not experience everybody else to be.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
I mean that's a Halloween party ish type of thing.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Maybe after the Odyssey, did you ever graduate to a
better gaming system or did you just say I'm not
doing this well.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
I guess when I graduated to a better gaming system
is when we had the room in the fraternity house.
Because we had the everyone came up there to play
Super Mario Brothers, Super Doctor.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Doctor Mario, Okay, Doctor Mario. Yeah. Also there were other
reasons why they came to that specific room, not because
of me. Oh you guys.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
You guys have roof access out of your window, and
none of the other rooms on the second floor do
play Doctor Mario.

Speaker 7 (34:21):
This.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
We'll be coming through here a lot.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
It is it I do every day since it happened,
which was as a sophomore, and then, like I said,
every year, every day of every that has happened since
my sophomore year of college was quite a few years ago.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
I've thought about it. It is.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
I find it hilarious. And I did then too that
the majority of the friends that I continue to live
with all the way through school loved that stuff. And
you never did it. I didn't say never, but I wasn't.
I didn't regular. I would kill to see that. I
would pay large sums of money to see that. If
there were five people in the house and five bongs

(34:56):
in the house, none of them were.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Mine, I might give up a rockets game sho just
to see that.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
But I can't even pretend to act like there wasn't
any of the second hand smoke floating around the houses.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
What are you like when you're contact? I don't know.
A couple of beers is the same?

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Did you do you do you get a little uh
loose with the with the language or what you're here?

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Oh? Man, can y'all not? I'm getting a headache. That
is the most wex thing ever. No, I couldn't say,
can y'all not?

Speaker 3 (35:28):
Because it was just NonStop all day, every day and
we all made it and we all have nice lives.

Speaker 7 (35:32):
Now.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Well, I'm glad that you didn't get kicked out for
illegal drug use. Kicked out? Yeah, well, who was gonna
find out? I'm kidding, nobody would do that. It's college.
It's basically encouraged.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
All right, when we come back, we will uh we
are going to hear from em Udoka with his visit
with Matt Thomas earlier today on the station. And we're
also going to hear, as promised, at some point from
Pete Carroll weighing in on that Texans defense that this
quarterback is going to have to go against all that
coming up in the three o'clock hour next straight up
three o'clock here on a Thursday edition of the A

(36:04):
Team Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
You're gonna miss me next week? Wex Are you gonna
miss me tomorrow?

Speaker 3 (36:09):
I know what the hats are supposed to be, but
your answer is absolutely I say every time, I always
miss you.

Speaker 8 (36:16):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
I don't that sounded heartfelt? Well, you better enjoy me
while you can.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
You only have a few hours with me as we
get you into Rockets basketball coming up at six o'clock.
They're in the Big Easy tonight. They'll be playing the Pelicans.
They're a five win team, they're not very good, and
the Rockets are probably smarting after that loss to the
Denver Nugets. I was going over some material for the
pregame tonight, and I'm actually madter two three days later

(36:43):
about the way that game ended than I was even
that night. I mean, you were watching the game with me,
were you surprised at my relative reserved demaion?

Speaker 3 (36:53):
I was a little bit, But I don't think during
the game you were as angry at the officials as
some others were E May and other fans, So maybe
that slowed your anger down. And one aspect of the
game we didn't mention then and may have mentioned on
one of the shows that have followed, I've talked about
the Rockets finishing that game in regulation just insanely. Well,

(37:14):
you know, from Jabari Smith's three to the four possessions
that followed, basket basket, basket basket, every single time, every
possession they scored on down the stretch, they had to
hit those back to back threes after they watched the
Nuggets hit those back to back threes, and they did.
But I didn't mention that the Nuggets. I didn't mention
the specifics. I talked about the obvious results. This year's

(37:35):
Rockets team is trying to win games down the stretch
by outscoring the other team, not by stopping them from scoring.
I said that, I didn't mention that the Nuggets scored
on seven straight possessions that bled into overtime, and that's
why the Rockets went into overtime tide and minutes later
they were down seven because they still weren't getting stops.
They clearly had a stop with two point three seconds

(37:55):
left if you want to include that, so it wasn't
seven consecutive, but they weren't made the types of stops
that This team clearly a different roster last year, and
it did take time for them to get as good
as they were defensively by the end of the year,
which this team could absolutely do. But twenty three games
into the season, even though their defensive rating is top five,
they weren't getting stops. And if they played only great

(38:18):
teams all year, there's no way they're going to be
third in defensive rating.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
They gave up a ten to two run in the
first half, they gave up a ten to three run
to in the third quarter, and then they did what
they did in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Like you mentioned, it's a trend.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, they And there's no reason for those in game
issues because the same thing happened in the Mavericks game,
which is what a different point in the third quarter?

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Turnover bucket, turnover, bucket, turnover, bucket.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
You were focused for forty seven minutes in two seconds,
but not for the other fifty eight and they went
on a six to zero run er, a ten two
runner that kills you, mm hmm, and it did. It
was they were the ones that had to play comeback
most of the night. Interesting though, as they went to
the fourth quarter and they immediately tied the game, but
took them about three and a half minutes to tie
the game in the fourth quarter. Nobody led by the

(39:00):
rest of the way until overtime when the Nuggets got
a seven point lead. They with Durant and with Alprint
taking on a different role, a much more prominent offensive role,
and the way they're starting to use a men like
they used to use a men, they are capable of
scoring against anybody pretty much any time they want. They
don't have nearly as many long lulls of for one

(39:24):
for six, oh for ten four minutes without scoring. It
doesn't happen unless they're turning it over. Yeah, now, the turnovers,
and you can look.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
I would without even looking at the box score, I
would venture to guess that in all seven of the
Rockets' losses this year, they have a minimum of fifteen
Now I could be wrong on that, but I'm sure
it's close. If it's not, and I would actually go
a step further and say there's probably.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Twenty or more in a lot of those losses.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Twenty or more is pretty rare, but they do it,
and especially at the beginning of the year, they were
just I mean, that's that's why they lost the Spurs game.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
I know that they had twenty two that night.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Their fewest turnovers and a loss is thirteen, okay, so
that's close to They've had two games under fifteen turnovers
that were not wins, okay.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
I mean, and they had cleaned it up in recent weeks,
but that kind of raared its ugly head. And I
mean it's free possessions and teams that are good, like
the Nuggets.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
They'll do something with those.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
We'll see what the Pelicans can do with them today,
see if they can get a six to win.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
How excited are you to see Jose Alvarado? Uh, not
excited at all. You really don't like him, and I am.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
My favorite thing about Jose Alvarado's I think the players
who actually play against him dislike him even more than
I do.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Yeah, he's not one of those like ah, if he
was on your team. No, people just consistently don't like
that guy. It's not like Dylan Brooks. Dylan Brooks can
help you win games.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
Yeah, they're very, very different pests. Injury report for tonight
it's pretty light for both sides. Obviously. The only thing
we don't know for sure with the Rocket side of
things is the Tar situation.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Again.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Listened to his questionable and he'll be listed that way.
I'm sure every game this road trip until he returns.
Possibility that he would have returned for the Denver game
number one, and now there's been a couple of days,
so we'll see if it's tonight or maybe Saturday or
Sunday they do have a back to back, maybe he
plays in one of those two games. And even on
the Pelican side of interest, it's just Jenta Murray that's
going to miss the game. Is again the achilles injury

(41:22):
has him sideline. Everybody else is available for the Pels,
including Zion Williamson.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Yeah, that's and he did not play the first Oh
they haven't played in this year. I'm thinking of I'm
thinking of a different injured player that the Rockets happened
to miss in the early quarter of the season. Speaking
of defense, speaking of getting things done, Pete Carroll is
hoping that, well, he's not the latest victim of still

(41:49):
to this point, and I think they actually increased it
because of what happened with Denver and some other teams
this weekend. It's like, by far, the fewest points allowed
in the NFL this season your Houston Tech. There's various
different metrics that are used to rate defenses however you want,
but they just at the bare bones minimum, they don't
allow as many points as anybody else in the NFL.

(42:11):
Pretty good barometer if you want to talk about a
defensive unit, and the Texans are at the top of
that list. Pete Carroll, who was obviously the opposing coach
coming in this weekend as the Raiders come to town
for a three to twenty five kick.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
Yeah, he was asked a pretty specific question on their defense,
because it really was more about how did they build
this team? When you look at this team and what
Demiko Ryans has done over the three years that he's
been there, what stands out to you.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Obviously he did mention the defense.

Speaker 9 (42:40):
They're really good first and then they're playing great and
Mico's got those guys home, and this is a stylity
that we recognize really clearly. They're doing it really well,
really active playmakers in all their spots, particularly the edge
guys you know, jump out, but it's guys in the
middle of the defense to the linebackers in the safety
is really active and really creative. That as far as

(43:01):
as us, we have to get moving on last scrimp,
which we come mo with the inside guys. Those guys
are going to be crashing down the whole time. We'll
kind of make sure that we're doing a good job
of keeping them from a moment in the game as
they do sometimes, but we got to get moving inside
make sure that we can make some space for its.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
You remember what I was saying all off season long
about the specifically Danil Hunter and Willie Anderson Junior, and
what they might actually end up doing to a quarterback
metaphorically speaking of course.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
Yeah, giving them lost yardage. Yeah exactly, yes, exactly. Well,
I actually use the term murder same thing kill. Yeah,
I mean, you know, it's all it's all in the
eye of the beholder.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
This might be you know what we were talking about, Well,
for all intents and purposes, it looks like Geno Smith's
going to get the start this week just because of
the injury report and the way things are going. This
might be the first example where they actually have they're
playing multiple quarterbacks because they knock this guy out.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
I mean, I never who knows. It's totally flukeish, Like
look at the games that the Texans quarterback missed. Their
edge rushers didn't knock him out. He had hit when
he was running the football by a secondary player.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah, I know, it's totally fine.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
I'm talking about the I'm talking about that specific scenario
where the pass rush up front gets to the Raiders'
starter and you suddenly have another quarterback in because he
gets creamed.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
They're into game number fifteen. It correct me if I'm wrong.
Is yet to happen?

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, they haven't played this defense.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
Well they've I'm saying the Texans haven't done that ten court.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
That's what I'm saying. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, though.
I mean, honestly, I thought Josh Allen was going to
be the first example, and they destroyed him.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Eight sacks on him.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Outside of running back playing quarterback in New York, mister Dart.
You know Mahomes is going to miss time. Has nothing
to do with the defense he played. They didn't hit
him out of the game. He hurt himself running away
from somebody. Aaron Rodgers missed a game because he broke
his wrist. That was on a sack, So you could
say that he got knocked out of the game.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
But it doesn't count because it was his throwing arm.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
I mean, it did happen on a hit, but it's
not really as frequent I think as maybe it seems
to be. Guys are clearly missing time. But you know,
Kyler Murrys missed a bunch of times. Jay and Daniels
missed a bunch of time. I'd have to go back
and look at the specifically when they went down because
Murry's dealing with a foot injury, and Daniels, like Rodgers,
is dealing with an elbow or a wrist injury. Was

(45:21):
it from ol he got hit here? And I can't
he had to leave the game. He's not going to
be back for weeks, And I mean, I'm glad it's
like that. And I know there's a bunch of other
quarterbacks and it's probably half of each, but you Also,
the reason why it happens a little bit less is
they know, especially a veteran quarterback, he knows tick tick.

(45:42):
If I still have the ball, I'm making a decision
like they have a clock in take the hit and
they will take their sacks. This team has seen their
quarterback get sacked a lot this year. But even when
the Texans have played some teams that have been way
high up on that ladder in terms of sacks allowed,
not necessarily but a huge day for them sacking quarterbacks.
He personally, I believe Gino Smith is tied even with

(46:05):
the time he missed, for most times sacked this year.
I think forty nine is the high round the league.
I think he's one of a couple of quarterbacks that
it's been sacked forty nine times. The team has allowed
fifty four sacks. It's definitely at the bottom end of things. So, yes,
a feast for the Texans could be on the horizon.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
That's that's what I'm saying. I think you know the
recipe is there. I don't know what the numbers were
going into the Bills game, and I thought they would
get to Josh Allen a little bit. I had no
idea they were gonna just and that first sack where
he was you know, his legs were kicking, and I
thought I thought his wrist had been broken or something
to that effect. I thought that was when he was

(46:43):
going to be knocked out of the game, and that
was gonna be the first time this was gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Yeah, biggest beat down of the year, biggest physical beatdown
of a quarterback happened in that game.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
He took every snap. It happened in this building. Yeah,
he get they.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
I mean, the first hit of consequence wasn't even a
sack because he was hit so hard behind the line
of scrimmage by Will Anderson, which would have otherwise been
a sack. But he knocked him forward like four yards
right and landed on him and wasn't called for a penalty, thankfully,
And he shouldn't have been, by the way, because it

(47:15):
was more like a tackle than a sack, and the
player was in front of him as the field goes
like they're going left or right, he was moving forward
away from him. He wasn't, you know, it should not
and he didn't land on him in any way that
they should have called it either.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
No, he did not. It was all textbook that night,
and I'm looking for that encore. I'm actually looking forward
to it. I'm also looking forward to em Udoka and
what he had to say a little bit of what
he had to say. Earlier here on the station, we
joined the Matt Thomas Show featuring Ross, but without Ross.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Today we'll get to emy Udoka's thoughts. Coming up next
the eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Tuck seven ninety Space City Home Network Thursday edition of
the show, wex Ac Josh Jordan with you as we
are getting closer and closer to Christmas Week. In the meantime,
we're getting closer and closer to the Rockets not only
playing more games than they had been without these huge,
just absolute long patterns of nights off, They're gonna start

(48:19):
playing like every other night, and it starts next week,
culminating and when they wind up in LA for two games,
the last of which is Christmas Night against the Lakers,
and then they'll finally start playing a bunch of home games,
which it's been the the gaps between games as well
as the road heavy slant on the Rocket schedule this year.

(48:41):
I don't know that I've ever seen anything like it.
To start a season always evens out, I know, I know.
But in that vein ema Uduka, he joins the station
each every week to speak with Matt Thomas and Ross
vi Rial on the Matt Thomas Show featuring Ross, and
he was talking about he's just his thoughts on these
last two losses and maybe some of the things that

(49:05):
went wrong or maybe he didn't like about some of
these losses.

Speaker 7 (49:08):
Yeah, there's a lot of minor details. Of course, it's
not just the end of the game. You know, the
foul against some men stands out there, but there's plenty
that goes on within the game.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
Control both things.

Speaker 7 (49:20):
You know, had a nine point lead, so we battled
back after you know, def sittings got to lead ourselves
and then they came back. And so you look at
the game of seventeen league changes hadn't came down to
the wire and goes to overtime and plenty better, no doubt,
And in both games it came down to one possession
game at the end. We had to get a stop

(49:40):
once and then we turn over at our place. So
very game, both teams are doing a lot of good
things with high level players, and that's kind of what
you're expect when we go against that team.

Speaker 10 (49:51):
It feels like to me that jokichwakes up with a
triple double, and honestly, Jamal Murray has really stepped up
his game as well. It's almost like, do you you
go in going, guys, they're gonna get their points. Let's
let let somebody else, you know. I'll just use Spencer
Jones an example. I had a couple of big threes
for them late in the contest. And then do you
do you sometimes think about that or do you go

(50:11):
we need to do a better job. We are good
enough defensively to make Jamal Murray and Nicola Jokic's life
as miserable as possible.

Speaker 7 (50:19):
Yeah, I think, you know, it's been the approach with
that team, specifically Jokis forever. You know, teams have either
decided to go after him and let him kind of
pick everything apart or let him score and lock everything
else up. And so we've done a decent job overall.
Among others. I think he's too comfortable. You know the
fact that he shot you know, five or nine threes
against us in four for eight in Game one, that's

(50:40):
just too too many.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Looks for him.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Nine to seventeen from deep. For Nikola Jokic is amazing
and he's a good three point shooter. They know to
get out on him. It's not like they were all
absolutely wide open. A lot of them are is a
little unexpected because he's so unorthodox with it. He's just
standing there at the three point line, he's got the
ball over his head, he's looking at his four not
as good as him teammates, and he just throws it in.
He just really just looks like he's throwing the past throng.

(51:03):
But that's how he shoots it. And that's why it's
so many times it goes in like a nineteen foot
rainbow and you're all over and you're like, that's no great.
I couldn't have asked for him to take a word
went in. It's amazing and that's why he is who
he is. I do think there is an element of
not letting the other guys beat you, but it becomes
very difficult to you know. The Spencer Jones part of
the loss. I know he's shot well this year, and

(51:25):
I pointed it out during postgame. I'm sure it was
pointed out during the game. He's been a good three
point shooter. He doesn't shoot a lot of him, and
he hasn't really been a huge part of the rotation
this year. He's got very few minutes. But it's getting
bigger and bigger. But of course you're going to commit
a second player, and sometimes that player's fallen off of Jones,
so he can prevent an easier Nikole Yokic drive to
the basket, where even if he's in one on one coverage,

(51:47):
you might end up with a basket. Andy Follon's is
three point play anyway. Are you gonna take Spencer Jones
awkward looking three point shots late in a game, Yeah,
you probably are. And his two late game three pointers
one in regulation and one and over two they went in.
He is nearly a fifty percent three point shooter because
they're almost always wide open because you're defending their two

(52:07):
all star caliber players. Both of them had good games,
and remember they were playing with a you know, a
lineup they weren't expecting because Watson got hurt in the game,
and a lineup that would otherwise have featured Aaron Gordon
and Christian Brown. But saying all that, I'm sure the
league I don't know. I don't know if they think
about stuff like this. That was playoff basketball. Now for
one hundred and one minutes between these two teams.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
The game in.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Houston was playoff caliber basketball and a game that was
tight for much of the night and ended with just
three point separating the two teams and only ended in
the final few seconds. The same thing happened in this
game and a game that went to overtime. He mentioned
the lead changes and the ties very indicative of the
two teams that they know each other well, actually very quickly.

(52:50):
This year, they'll see each other two more times, both
in Denver, and the idea that they're going to finish
one of them two and one of them three. And
if they are able to take care of their first
round opponents, there is your second round opponent, and it's
a pretty good possibility. That's exactly what happens. Moving to
tonight's game. Just completely off subject of what you're talking about,
but just where they're at tonight. I can't remember if

(53:15):
it was a media member in New Orleans or if
it was a fan that was there. And doesn't it
typically attend You've been to the Smoothie King Center, right,
I have not. You've been to the Superdome, right I have, Yes, Okay,
and so they're right next door to each other.

Speaker 7 (53:31):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
The only reason I believe there's a casino nearby, Well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
I have only been in the Smoothie King Center for
a wrestling event because it was I was there for
WrestleMania and that was where Raw was held. But when
you're in an arena, it's a lot of the things
are the same, the amenities and all that kind of stuff.
It is an absolute dump. And on top of that,

(53:59):
what I saw this was on social media. It was
like they were so like the attendance was so poor.
Right now, I'm talking about this season. They're not a
good basketball team. They are not so that that obviously
goes into this, But then you're talking about like just
a I mean, it's got to be bottom three arenas
in the entire NBA. I'm trying to think of a
worse one that you could even think of just from

(54:21):
a fan experience. Everything, Well, the product's going to be
crap already, you know that going in before even walking
the door.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
They put the number thirteen, four hundred and forty eight
at their most recent home game at Victory. By the way,
the Pelicans are on a two game winning streak. Yeah,
they've won five times.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Yeah, it was in Chicago.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
Chicago was their last game on the road. Their last
home game was obviously the game prior to that on
December eleventh, And they're telling us thirteen four hundred and forty.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Eight was the announced attendants. They'll have it, which is
is it's tiny, it's a terrible note, it's an awful number.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Now that's going to be a better number to night,
simply because Kevin Durantz in the building.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
I firmly believe that.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
There may be some Rockets fans at a game not
too far away, or they live in New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
But when I read those those statements about the Smoothie
King Center, which by the way, loves smoothies, but like
many places, yeah, well and they have them there. I
think Matt says, you can still get them at halftime,
like they make them in mass for the media members.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
But it's only like one flavor.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
It's not the whole menu, like when you go in
there and it's like you need a magnifice.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
I can see MT going in there, Well, we're handling
halftime duties, and the guy in front of him, yeah,
can you add some protein, okay, and then yeah, yeah,
I'll take some of that too.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
And that's like, dude, let's go I.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Need some torbonado. Oh we don't do that here. But yeah,
it is. I honestly, and especially in light of what
Adam Silver said about, you know, expansion or what I
just don't look at I look at the Pelicans, and
I look at Memphis, and I think about, Okay, if

(55:56):
you don't want to contract these franchises, you need to
move them.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
I don't know if New Orleans is their fans support
is quite as bad as the product is making it.
If their team was more competitive and more consistently competitive,
I think it might be different. They have two things.
They have the Saints in this right.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
I think New Orleans thinks they have the Saints. They
do have the Saints. I think that's all they know about.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
I mean, they have college football, I suppose, I guess.
I mean the playoffs, right.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Like, how far down the list of sports he just
gonna win the next championship in New Orleans?

Speaker 3 (56:32):
The Saints or the Pelicans? Yeah, you and the back there?
How about the Green Waves. They're in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
They're the only playoff team this year of those three
that you mentioned, and it's not even close. I just
I'm sure Joe Dumars will fix everything.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
That's the other thing, like his deal that was made
on draft Day has been widely panned, I think before
people realize that Derek Queen might actually have been a
very good player, and even if he is, most everybody
still hates the deal for what they gave up to
move up six spots to do that, not even inside
the top ten. They moved up from eighteen to twelve
next year, South Atlanta. That trade, Indiana and their pick

(57:11):
are going somewhere. I can't remember who was at twelve
that they gave it to, but obviously their pick to
somebody else.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
I'm just happy if you didn't go to the Thunder
since they have everybody else's first round lottery pick.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Well, we'll see what else they can help that team
out with.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Yeah, that as if they need it. All right, we
are going to take a quick coin right here. When
we come back, Taylor mccague is going to join us
to talk all things college football. The playoffs underway, and
we will have that conversation next here on the A team.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
He got the news out of Austin today with a
change on their defensive side of the football from coaching perspective,
players getting into the portal, players making themselves eligible for
the NFL draft, and we have the University of Michigan.
A lot of college football stuff going on, and to
that end, great to welcome in Taylor mccagh to the
program today, college football analyst and a couple of different
spots covers. Big twelve has had his voice heard over

(58:07):
many interesting college football games this season at a variety
of levels. But Taylor, as you join us here, I
thought I needed to ask you this first as it
relates to the NFL. You wrapped up your college career
playing quarterback at Rice in twenty thirteen. That was the
same time Philip Rivers was in year ten in the
NFL for the San Diego Chargers. He just played an
NFL game four days ago. What do you think about that?

(58:29):
Could you imagine ten years from now at that age
for you playing a football game?

Speaker 5 (58:35):
Yeah, well, thanks for having me on, guys.

Speaker 11 (58:36):
I actually joked with my wife when we had that
game on in our house and I thought, you know,
if I got hit today, I'm about to be thirty five.
I think I would get turned into a fine powder.
And he is another ten years older than me, So no,
I can't believe. I couldn't believe when he's out there
warming up, it was surreal. I remember going to Texans
games when I was at Rice and he was playing

(58:58):
for the Chargers, and he in the you know, felt
like he was one of the vets at that point.
So I still can't believe it's real. And you know,
but he played well. I mean, all things considered, like
more serviceable than a lot of backups would have been.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
I don't think there's any doubt. It's honestly exactly what
I thought he would do. The limitations he might have,
but the bonus of having a guy that can look
over the defense and know what they're doing, and I
think that's a huge benefit. As we get ready for
the playoff games this weekend in college football, the Friday
night game of the three games Saturday, the game of
most interest to you is what and what do you
think we'll see in that?

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Of the four playoff.

Speaker 11 (59:33):
Games, it's the early game on Saturday. To me, it's
Miami going to A and m You know, Miami only
had four road games all season and one of those
they lost at smu A, and m on the other side,
I think is a byproduct of these expanded conferences where
you know, they ended up getting to play the bottom
half of the SEC and the one team that they

(59:54):
played in the top half of the SEC they lost to, and.

Speaker 5 (59:56):
That was Texas.

Speaker 11 (59:58):
So this is two teams that look, I think momentum
is going to play a huge part in this game early.
I think confidence on whichever side is playing well is
going to be incredibly important. And Kyle Field is always
Kyle Field. But is it benefit Miami at all that
it's an early kick compared to obviously if it was
a night game. And then you know, how does Marcel

(01:00:19):
Reed play? I think in November there were definitely times
that he was not at his best. I think back
to the first half of South Carolina where it looked
man he was some of the throws he was playing lost,
and then obviously they come back to win that game.
So that's the one to me that I'm probably most
fascinated to watch. And then obviously the one on Friday

(01:00:40):
night Oklahoma and Alabama in that rematch, that's one that
I like, O you to win that game.

Speaker 5 (01:00:47):
It'll be interesting to see.

Speaker 11 (01:00:48):
Alabama moved the ball so well in that first matchup
and just had all the turnover issues, But going into
Norman on a night game and beating that defense set
is a tall task for Alabama.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Well, you talk about the Aggies and you can't help
but think about the long Horns.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
That's just the way it goes. They're like peanut, butter
and jelly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
And I know we're talking about the playoff, But in
light of today's news, kind of a two part question,
the fact that Will must Champ is going to be
back at the forty acres, your thoughts on them bringing
him back to be the defensive coordinator? And then is
next season kind of like I said this earlier in
the show today, do you feel like next season will

(01:01:24):
actually maybe be for the Longhorns when a lot of
people were hyping them up to be this year prior
to Arch getting off to that slow start.

Speaker 11 (01:01:33):
Well, in must Champ, I think he is if nothing else,
and Texas has been better about this in the last.

Speaker 5 (01:01:39):
Few seasons since Stark took over.

Speaker 11 (01:01:41):
But every defense for Will must Champ plays with an
age and I think that's something that Texas will benefit
from with regards to the expectations there will always be
in the expanded playoff I mean, the expectations will always
be protected to make it to the playoffs and compete.

Speaker 5 (01:01:58):
For a national championship. I agree.

Speaker 11 (01:02:00):
I think with what you're saying that, with what happened
with Arch and how young he was this year and
how out of control the expectations got in the offseason,
that now the offseason headline, it'll ramp back up, and
now the new storylines will be Okay, a year ago
it was too early, but now he played well down
the stretch, played his best football in November. Now is

(01:02:23):
the opportunity for Texas to capitalize on the pieces they
have returning, specifically our spanning. So look, it'll be the
hype train will get going again. He'll be in the
top five of the Heisman preseason odds because of his
name again and because I do think he's still one
of the most talented quarterbacks in college football. But you
saw some of the youth early that people wanted to

(01:02:43):
gloss over, and the expectations got so out of control early.

Speaker 5 (01:02:46):
In the season.

Speaker 11 (01:02:47):
I think you'll see how he played down the stretch
and how much better he was in the month of November.
I do expect that to be to a launch point
for him and where he picks back up at the
first part of next season.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
Taylor mccarr joining us here on Sports seven ninety covering
college football, talking about college football, and you do a
lot of work covering the Big Twelve of this year.
One team in the tournament, Texas Tech. The off week
they get the winner of Oregon and James Madison. Curious
your thoughts on what they can do facing one of
those two teams and beyond and specifically on the conference
in general this year and moving forward. What did you

(01:03:19):
think about the quality of play inside the Big Twelve
this year?

Speaker 11 (01:03:23):
Yeah, you know, I think the Big Twelve moved away
from the sort of storyline or party line of how
much parity they had, and you had a clear separation
this year of the teams at the top and the
teams at the bottom. And forever it feels like the
Big Twelve has struggled with your top five or six
teams sort of round robbining one another and knocking everybody off,

(01:03:44):
and then you get a champion at the end of
the year that sometimes has three losses.

Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
That was obviously not the case this year.

Speaker 11 (01:03:50):
There was a clear dominant number one team in Texas Tech.
I think BYU was one of the best stories in
college football that we just don't talk about enough is
Bear bac Meyer as a freshman that you know, Jake
Retslap was supposed to be the quarterback and has the
off field stuff and the honor code issues with the
BYU and leaves barre Backmeyer didn't get on campus for
BYU until June and ends up being one of the

(01:04:12):
best freshman quarterback in the country and one of the
top quarterbacks in that league. And I thought they had
a real case to an argument to be in the
College Football playoffs. But Texas Tech, I was there for
the Big fual championship. Look that front, they are the
front seven for Tech. It is either Oklahoma or Texas
Tech that has the best front in college football. And
they're as good as advertised. And I think they will

(01:04:36):
match up really well against Oregon. I think they will
get consistent pressure on Oregon, and then the challenge becomes.
You know, Tech saw some of their issues they've had
in their red zone offense. That's been the only achilles
field really of that team is having to settle for
too many field goals, and they've been so much better
than everyone in the Big twelve that hasn't really mattered.
But against Oregon, who we expected to be Oregon, it

(01:04:58):
will matter.

Speaker 5 (01:04:59):
And so I think it'll be a.

Speaker 11 (01:05:00):
Combination of can they continue to get out to the quarterback,
which I think they will, and then can make invert
those red zone trips to touchdowns.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
We got about fifteen seconds for this meaningless last question
for you. If bear Bachmar wore say sixteen like you,
or twelve or fourteen like every other quarterback rather than
forty seven, would you think is highly of him?

Speaker 5 (01:05:22):
I love that he wore forty seven, but yes I would.

Speaker 11 (01:05:26):
And what he did this season as a true freshman,
I mean, he has the best true freshman season since
Salen Hurts. And there's just not very many true freshmen
that play at that level. And they'll be back next year.
And I'm glad that Quantica Talky got that extension, as
most of them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
That was a pretty cool scene seeing him tell his team,
I'm not going anywhere as this coaching carousel is running
wild and still some openings to Phil but Taylor, we
certainly appreciate the time look forward to doing it again soon.
We'll see how things play out in the playoffs this weekend.
Thanks for your time.

Speaker 5 (01:05:53):
Yeah, awesome, Thank you guys for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
You got it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Taylor mccarr talking a little college football Friday night and
three games Saturday, and four teams will be out of
the playoffs and eight will still remain plenty to discuss
moving forward.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Kenny Taylor McCarthy joining us last segment. Uh, he's not
kidding about Will must Champ bringing an edge, coaching with
an edge.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
His latest tweet search must Champ yelling he's got the
cliperch I rate must Champ search, red faced coached, must
Champ search sideline animal, Will must chan.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Search punching the dry erase boards. I'll see it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
He's uh he quote tweeted the Breaking News with that
clip of Will must Champ. He actually he didn't punch
it so much as he like upper forearmed it. If
you look at the video, MM I would I would
make my tackles if I played for him.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
I mean, it's great to be irate and intense and
all results are what they're after.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
Well, I think he's gonna coach him up. I think
yelling at them. I think you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Yeah, so good comment there. It's like Christmas has come
early for a lot of college football fans these days.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
And yeah, all this negativity about who should be in
and who should be out, we really just want to
see eleven more good football games around the rest of
bowl season. And I think we'll see a handful of
good games. It's it's hard to believe that they'll all
be like that. And the way things went last year, again,
it shouldn't happen this year because the seeding and the
home dates and the off weeks are different and how

(01:07:26):
you earn them. You know, the best four teams in
the country are the four teams that have off weeks.
Last year, there was not the case because of how
they put the team put the bracket together. But these
are the only four games of the entire postseason that
are home games. Miami, if they're going to win, they
have to win a road game in College Station, And
the same thing goes for the three other teams seated

(01:07:47):
appropriately not at home. And I think that you know,
obviously it played out last year and then those teams
took some of that momentum I think into their following
week's game. We'll see if it happens again this year.
Glad that we have a very entertaining game Friday night.
I think wish we had the same on Saturday night.
I don't think we'll see it. I do think, like
Taylor said, I think Oregon's going to beat James Madison

(01:08:09):
on Saturday Night, and then Texas Tech is going to
beat them in the quarterfinals.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Wait, the last part is you said what?

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
I think Oregon is gonna win the game Saturday Night
against JMU, and then Billy Napier can really sink his
teeth into the James Madison job, and then I think
Oregon is going to lose to Texas Tech the following
in their following playoff game in the quarterfinals.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
Texas Tech's trendy this year.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
I don't think people have overwhelming respect for them because
of the conference, and they just don't know that they
did they see elite level offenses. Is their defense as good?
As you know their numbers? Obviously they they should speak
for themselves, and I think the Big Twelve has some
good teams, but I'm okay with people thinking that. I mean,
they played the best team they played was BYU and

(01:08:52):
they absolutely smashed them. Both times. I think that goes
a long way towards what you should think about them.
I don't think some overwhelming offense. So again you're a
little bit unsure of exactly what their defense will be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
But I think their defense is going to play. I
think it can play at the elite level.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
And I think Oregon's offenses many people probably think of
thinking of Oregon from any year prior to this year. Oh,
they're explosive, They're unstoppable, sixty five to seventy points against
their conference competition prior to getting to the Big Ten,
totally normal. They're not like that this year. They aren't
as overwhelming, nowhere near that. They do have a good quarterback.
Quarterback might be the issue that slows tech down, but

(01:09:33):
I think there will be one of the final four
team standing, just like they are one of the four
teams who doesn't have to play this week because of
their regular season.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
All Right, while we're on the subject, let's talk baseball.
Jeff Passing with his I don't know if this is
like an annual article that he does, but he's just
kind of giving the temperature on certain things going on
in MLB free agency. But this particular version of this
year's article that he writes like this most every year.

(01:10:02):
The headline also says trade intel on Tucker and Bregman.

Speaker 5 (01:10:09):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
I mean, if you had to guess right now, is
Bregman returning to Boston or going somewhere else, you'd probably
say he's coming back to Boston, right.

Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
I think the longer it goes, the less likely it is.
But yes, i'd really right now he's I think there's
you know, there's some that wonder if the market isn't
what he thought it was going to be m hm.
And he's in kind of a tough spot because he
thought I would just opt out and then I'll get
the money I was going to get from Boston and
everything will be great. Instead of playing another year where

(01:10:41):
I'm still trying for the big, long term guaranteed money,
I'll just get it now from the same team. I
could have just taken forty plus forty from for the
next two years. And maybe it hasn't played out that way.
Maybe they didn't he didn't have the right idea of
what they were after. But I do still think there's
a pretty good chance he's there. I think the other
teams that we think are in play are absolutely real.
I think the Tigers see how close they are, and

(01:11:03):
a it kind of seems odd that they would go
after Bregman and then not keep Schoobale for the years
that they could otherwise play together, But I don't know
if they have the finances for that. I absolutely believe
Arizona is definitely real. I think he and his family
would be perfectly happy living in Arizona. They spend a
ton of time there already and have for some seasons.

(01:11:26):
And Arizona just got Merril Kelly back. They actually have
despite what some of the games that the Astros had
against them might have suggested. They can hit there. They
can be an explosive offense. They're in a tough spot, literally
their spot. They're in the National League West. It's not
even just about having a good record. They have to
play these teams. Thirteen times against the Padres, thirteen times

(01:11:48):
against the Giants, thirteen times against the Dodgers. They fared
fairly well the last couple of years. I think a
Bregman addition, if it death, definitely, if it doesn't cost
them Marte, then they're just as much of a favorite
to make the postseason too. The very least does anybody
else in the National League. I think that's for absolutely
for real. Curious why trade intel On is followed by

(01:12:10):
Tucker and Bregman. Yeah, when neither are under contract anywhere. Yeah,
it was written improperly or I'm scanning the article looking
for where that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
Well, that's why I'm like, it's so it's Passon's MLB
free agency comma, trade intel On, Tucker, Bregman and more so,
maybe it's just poorly written.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
So that's really poorly written, though, Like how does that work?
Like on ESPN dot com. Obviously Jeff Passon is writing
the article. Does he write the headline?

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
I mean I think he would on other pieces. I
couldn't tell you who wrote this one.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Yeah, and when it as it pertains to those two names,
and specifically Bregman. It's interesting how he writes this. Boston
needs a big bat badly, whether it's Bregman or a replacement.

Speaker 3 (01:12:59):
If you're a major league owner and subsequently his personnel
team is general manager, et cetera, are you at all
concerned about signing a player long term for the one
hundred and fifteen games he's gonna give you annually?

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
Meaning he's got built in games he's gonna miss because
of whatever, and you've got to just factor that in
before you give out all this money.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
Last year was one fourteen. The last three years in
Houston were very strong. One hundred and forty five are better.
But he obviously had a season right before that it
was ninety one. So I don't know if it's where
his future is. It's specific to the injury he had again,
then I wonder if it slows him down again. And
maybe I'm being unfair and I don't know that i'd

(01:13:43):
label him injury prone. But he's gonna be playing next
season at age thirty two, right, and you're the team
that's gonna give him four years one forty I don't know. Well,
so that's the thing about opting out.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
I mean, he got it's not as because it's not
long term, but he is getting forty per over three years.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
That's it's burden, Christian Walker got.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
Yeah, it's either you want eighty million in guaranteed money
for the next two years or forty for one, or
you opt out to try to get one twenty one
to fifty one, eight to ten, which is I think
why he and Scott Boris chose to hit the market, and.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
He still says Bregman figures to seek six years at
that thirty two years of age. But if he doesn't
get it this offseason, I don't know if he's gonna
get it. Oh, he's signing a long term. He can't
do this again. That's why I'm just fast. You can
do it once, right, And that's why I'm fascinated as
to where he winds up out of all these names,
even probably more so than Tucker, because we all know
he's only going to put up a regular season.

Speaker 3 (01:14:40):
Numbers Tucker's less, even though he was just hurt each
of the last two years. I don't consider him injury prone,
and I do think he's going to produce at a
big time level.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
Two hours done, two hours in.

Speaker 3 (01:14:54):
Get back on the football side of things, Dump into
a couple of things on the Texan side as the
Raiders gets set to hit Townay, come more hours with
us here on the A team Wexac and Josh. Then
we'll take you into Rockets basketball this evening, Pelicans hosting
the Rockets. Six o'clock for Rockets launch Pad, six to

(01:15:14):
thirty for Rockets Countdown seven o'clock for tip off MT
and I we'll have that for you this evening, and
then we'll get to do all this all over again
tomorrow beginning at two gets you into our stone cold
locks the rest of the playoff weekend and the NFL
weekend beginning tonight, and also that has a pair of
games on Saturday. Although all of the action prior to
Sunday is NFC football, including the game tonight, this one

(01:15:35):
will go a long way towards determining who the top
seed and NFC at West winner will be. With the
Seahawks and the Rams going tonight, two teams that handed
the Texans two of their five losses this season, the
Seattle Seahawks a little bit later in the year and
the Rams obviously in the season opener. Texans and Raiders

(01:15:55):
this weekend the much different West Division. This West Division
will have two teams that don't make the playoffs, the
Chiefs and the Raiders. Texas have beaten the Chiefs, they
have seen one of the two teams that will make
the playoffs, the Denver Broncos, against whom they lost, and
they still have that game remaining next week that is Saturday.
Remember mid afternoons start three point thirty for their game

(01:16:16):
against the Chargers. Know a lot more about exactly what
it means to both teams based on the results. This weekend,
the Chargers are playing the Cowboys and the Texans, obviously,
as we've mentioned multiple times, have their three to twenty
five kickoff against the Raiders this week. And simulations and
projections they can be fun, they can be dramatically different
than what you expect, and they can also be foolish.

(01:16:38):
We've seen it with the NBA, which we will reference
throughout the season, how foolish some of those were.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
With three games to go on the NFL.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
ESPN has cranked out that projection item projected game results
for each of the remaining three weeks of the season,
along with scores of those games and then the subsequent
playoff scenarios that play out this way. Because of it,
I'll give you the rest results of the teams in
the AFC South and you see if you can follow along.
This weekend, Jacksonville's playing Denver, the Texans are hosting the Raiders,

(01:17:10):
and Monday Night Football features the Indianapolis Colts Tennessee.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
Sorry you don't get mentioned. You are a to win
team you.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
Suck, So Jacksonville's going to go to Denver and lose
twenty three to twenty one. The Texans are going to
get past the Raiders thirty three to twenty three, and
the forty nine Ers, in the lowest scoring game of
the week, are going to win ten to six. So
that puts you tied with the Jaguars and now two
games ahead of the Indianapolis Colts heading into the final

(01:17:39):
two games of the season. Week seventeen, Saturday afternoon, the
Texans are at the Chargers. Jacksonville Jaguars play the Indianapolis Colts.
So the results of those games, Jaguars are going to
lose to Philip Rivers and the Colts thirty to twenty.
So now the Texans can take over sole possession of
first place if they beat the Chargers, and the simulations

(01:18:02):
and projections from the Worldwide Leader suggests that they will
do just that by a thirty three to six margin
in La Did you see what they wrote. I'll get
to that. So the Texans win by twenty seven to
take a one game lead into the final week of
the season. Final week of the season has the Colts
and Texans getting together and the Jaguars their home game

(01:18:25):
with the Tennessee Titans. The Jaguars will whoop the Titans
while giving up thirty points forty five thirty, and the
Texans will not head to the playoffs on a nine
game winning streak. They'll head to the playoffs on a
one game losing streak. They'll lose at home to the
Colts while riding an eight game winning streak twenty to thirteen. However,

(01:18:48):
with the same record as the Jaguars and those specific
results firing those into the tiebreaker machine, the Texans will
win the division at eleven and six, which is possibly
why that last game of the season went that way.
They'll finished eleven and six they draw the three seed.
Jaguars also make the playoffs with the same record and

(01:19:08):
draw the sixth seed, which means they would be playing
one another. What did they write about the Texans as
they finished the season out two and one, losing their finale.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
Well, it's specifically what they wrote about that Chargers lopsided
victory that they got. Things got ugly in Week seventeen
when Houston edge rushers Will Anderson Junior and daneil Hunter
obliterated LA's weak offensive line it was so bad that

(01:19:38):
coach Jim Harbaugh polled Justin Herbert at the start of
the fourth quarter with the game out of hand. The
Chargers then rested their starters in Week eighteen with the
number seven seed already locked up. I could see that happening.
I mean, I don't know if it's what was the score,
thirty three to six, thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
Three to six.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
And if you remember earlier on the show, when we
were talking about Geno Smith the Raiders protection, I mentioned
he was tied for the league lead in times sacked
with forty nine times. Cam Ward of the Titans also
has been sacked forty nine times, and Justin Herbert has
been sacked forty nine times. No NFL quarterback has been
sacked more often.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
It's interesting because we're talking about that's the next two
teams back to back, those weak offensive lines. But you
see what they then turned around and talked about in
the playoffs after all of this happens in the Jags
seemingly choke away winning the division. They then get revenge.
The Texans aren't even gonna get out of the first round.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
What to expect in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
It's not just I mean, it's like, I don't know, Like,
if you're gonna say this, it's all it's all fun
and games and everything like, but I just don't understand
how you find a way for the Jags to do
this only to get to the postseason and they're gonna
beat the Texans again.

Speaker 3 (01:20:59):
Well, they detail the Chalky regular season simulation number five
thousand and two to get to this fun part at
some point, you know, like even if you want to
say I could see what they said playing out, I
don't know about that. Could they Jaguars Schustin by the way,
where they had a nineteen point lead in the fourth quarter,
know what happened? Then they let the Texans score four

(01:21:20):
touchdowns exactly Davis Mills specifically and Sheldon Rankins.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
Well, that's true. Don't short Sheldon on his touchdown.

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
Yeah, I don't think that's likely to play out, but
I don't think the I do think it could be
a defensive battle that they suggest. But the simple thing
is it has happened only one time in tech season
Texans postseason history losing a game inside that building. They
have only lost one game ever. That was the first
postseason game of Deshaun Watson's career. And they looked awful

(01:21:50):
that day, losing to the Colts twenty one to seven.
They were down after five seconds. They they played bad football.
He played bad football, and they were the worst team
that day. And they lost every other playoff game they've
played at home. Not only have they won them like
the last two obviously have been been blowout fashion. Their
defense manhandled the Browns two years ago, and they manhandled
the Chargers last year you've had. The defense has played

(01:22:12):
a huge role and a lot of these postseason wins
by scoring points. JJ Watt has scored a postseason touchdown,
Christian Harris scored a postseason touchdown, Eric Murray scored at
I mean, I don't know that they're going to do
it again, but I wouldn't bet against it, especially if
it's the Jacksonville Jaguars that are coming to town. I
still think it's a bigger picture. Not look at him now,

(01:22:32):
he's figured it out. I don't think Trevor Lawrence has
necessarily figured it out. But I will say, and I
think everybody can realize this. Look at the Texans, the Jaguars,
and Broncos. For instance, the Jaguars are riding a five
game winning streak, they're clearly playing better football.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
Well, who's the last team to beat them? Houston?

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
The Texans are riding a six game winning streak, They're
obviously playing better football. Who was the last team to
beat them? Denver? And Denver's riding an eleven game winning street.
If not for those other teams in the mix, who
knows how long these winning streaks might have been.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
But that Denver win was a three point win.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
It was a defensive struggle, and the majority of that
contest was played without CJ.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
Stroud.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
And when he was playing, he was the old version
of c J. Stroud, the pre concussion version this year,
which this.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
Time with the post concussion version. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
I was just about to say, this guy looks nothing
like that guy.

Speaker 3 (01:23:24):
This guy looks like why do you think he played
this way in that game?

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
No, what I'm saying is post concussion. Since his return,
not only has he played better, it looks like and
again I don't know what happened in the interim. I'm
sure he was looking at film and all that kind
of stuff and was not satisfied with his start to
twenty twenty five. It looks like the concussion from the

(01:23:49):
standpoint of learning from mistakes and being able to kind
of remove yourself from the situation, That's all I'm saying
when I say this, it looks like that concussion was
the best thing that happen into the Texans this year. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
I think he was already starting to make changes in
that particular game, if not the week before. But what really,
in my opinion, what really changed is they solidified the
group in front of them. Yeah, simple as that. You know,
they've had the same offensive line group for all the
games he started since returning, and they had already gotten
them in place by then prior to the concussion. When

(01:24:22):
you're looking back at where they were and what point
in the season it was that they had not I
mean week to week it was a different group almost
every single week. That was week nine, and a new
group in week one, two, three, four. They're just constantly
well does this guy fit? Is this guy healthy? Should
we move him? Should we move them? And now he
gets to play behind the same five and the best
five best five that they've put out there. I don't

(01:24:43):
think it's an overwhelming change. I don't think they're unbelievable.
I don't think they're pass pros. It's all just a
little bit better. And when you just get a little
bit better, you see how much better the offense might
have a chance to be. Clearly, you play against Denver,
it's one way their defense is good. You play against
the Cardinals last week, and anybody else they've played is
nobody's had a defense as good as Denvers for the

(01:25:03):
Texans to face since they faced them. Davis Mills didn't
face the defense as good as Denvers, and obviously CJ
hasn't either. There are only maybe two or three that are,
and Houston's one of them. So now you're left with
maybe one, maybe the Rams, maybe a few other teams.
Would you'd say that about not this week, not next week,
And it's not the final week of the season either.
It might not even be their first week the postseason.

(01:25:25):
They face a superior caliber defense. It gives you another
four plus weeks to continue getting better. CJ's decision making
has been better. CJ's clock in his head, I think
has been better, and recognizing I've looked over these two
progressions in this one and now it's time to get
rid of the football, and he's scrambling with purpose. His

(01:25:46):
throws on the run usually are pretty good. They've been
incredibly good over the last couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
Yeah, I feel a whole lot more confident about the
offense moving forward, regardless of who they're playing. I'm not
talking about you know, we know who they're playing on
the regular season schedule.

Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
Obviously feel great about this week.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
I feel better about the Chargers game than I would have, say,
even a couple of weeks ago. And then the Colts,
I mean, come on, why would the Texans lose the
game to the Colts because they're resting players. But the
only way you're resting players if you're playing the Colts
is if the aforementioned scenario with the Jags.

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):
Yeah, if you go into the last game and you've
already sewed up that spot and you can't get to two,
then you're not gonna fall to four.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
You're already locked in at three. Yeah, how would you
play them? That's true, and I guess that's but I
don't know what would happen. There's a lot of things
that have to happen sure to make that your seed
and all the things that go into that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
So, yes, the Colts beating the Jaguars, the week before
is one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:26:46):
That's not gonna be the case, all right, We are
going to get to some more Audio Quinn yours. He's
the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins this week. What
does his head coach think about that? That's next.

Speaker 3 (01:27:00):
There's on a Thursday edition of the A Team Talking
a little NFL football. The rest of the NFL slate
this weekend handful of games that mean, only where are
we going to draft in the upcoming NFL draft?

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Just because these two teams.

Speaker 3 (01:27:14):
That happen to be playing one another in the final
three weeks of the season are going nowhere. We don't
have any of those games over the time between now
and Sunday. Mention those NFC tilts. We got the eleven
and threes battling each other. Tonight it's in Seattle between
the Rams and Seahawks. Eagles still trying to finalize their
division championship. They've got the Commanders without Jayden Daniels not

(01:27:35):
only this game, but for the rest of the season.
Any Eagles victory or Cowboys defeat will give them the
division title. And the Packers and Bears get together again
after just playing recently ten and four Bears barely ahead
of the nine to four and one Packers. Well, then
we have a couple of games on Sunday that pair
teams that aren't playing in the postseason. The Jets and

(01:27:56):
Saints are playing one another. We'll see if the Jets
defense takes a huge jo for now that they have
a new DC head coach, Aaron Glenn. Vikings and Giants
get together, and we'll see if running back Jackson Dart
will also throw the football and try not to get hit.
The Chiefs and Titans. The Kansas City Chiefs are in
one of those games. Neither of those teams are going
to the postseason. Falcons and Cardinals another such game, and

(01:28:20):
every other game has some sort of playoff implications, obviously,
including the Texans and Raiders Sunday afternoon at three twenty five.
The other game I didn't mention is one of those
such games that doesn't mean anything other than where is
their future in the NFL Draft. That's the Dolphins hosting
the Bengals. Bengals are four and ten and Joe Burrow's
return has not done a whole lot to change their fortunes.

(01:28:41):
He has said time and time again over the last
couple of weeks I am playing like and he's right,
and it's unfortunate and it's not what they expected when
he returned. They were not even out of the division
race when he returned, but obviously they are now. He
continues to seemingly be disenchanted with everything, but continues to say,
while look like he's disenchanted, that that's not the case.

(01:29:02):
It's just not fun to lose. It's not fun to
not play well. So it's somewhat understandable. But the team
that's making the quarterback change is the other team, the
Miami Dolphins. It appears this change and everything else they've
done this year is not going to cost Mike McDaniel
his head coaching job. It did cost the gm IS job.
Now afford me this little exercise in Mike McDaniel leader

(01:29:22):
of men. Want to play what he said yesterday about
why he made the change, but I want to read
you what he said first, and if you could, I
love this game. I'll get it started right here at
forty five, and tell me how long it takes. Okay,
all right, I said it before, But ultimately the team
needs and I'm looking for conviction and quarterback play and

(01:29:43):
understanding that he is a rookie. I felt that he
would play the position most convicted, which impacts every player
on the field. Realistically, that's what I was looking for.
I needed more convicted play from the quarterback position, and
I thought Quinn.

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):
Could deliver that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:55):
Seventeen seconds, Let's hear how long it took Mike McDaniel
to say that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
You know, I think you know there's.

Speaker 12 (01:30:05):
I said it before, but ultimately the team needs and
I'm looking for conviction and quarterback play, and understanding that
he is a rookie, you know, I felt that he
would play the position most convicted, which is UH, and

(01:30:26):
which UH impacts every player on the field, and you know,
realistically that that's what I was looking for. I need
needed more convicted play from the quarterback position.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
I thought Quinn could deliver on that. Best is he drunk.
That's how he talks at the podium.

Speaker 3 (01:30:46):
I've talked to him in a similar setting when the
Dolphins visited UH during training camp a couple of seasons
ago for some joint practices.

Speaker 1 (01:30:54):
He talked before practice.

Speaker 3 (01:30:55):
So I've heard plenty of press conferences from him and
have had the chance to talk to him that similar setting.

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
Off to the side of the field. There.

Speaker 3 (01:31:02):
It is how he talks to the media. I've seen
some of him in front of his team. He talks
a little bit differently. Some of the lack of conviction seemingly,
and what he's trying to formulate with his sentences to
the media isn't there when he's talking to his team, thankfully,
because I can't imagine how they would ever get through
any meetings with him. It took me seventeen seconds to

(01:31:24):
say that, and I wasn't even trying to go through
it very quickly. It took him forty three seconds to
come up with that. Now, granted I was trying to
think on the fly. I already had a script because
I had to transcribe that. But he was trying to
determine how he wanted to answer that question. All he
wants is conviction from his quarterback, because in his mind,
that's what Tua wasn't providing. This was way more than

(01:31:45):
a one week thing. I think some people look at
their well, they were two and seven, then they got
to six and seven, all with Tua, and then they
lost one game and he benched him.

Speaker 1 (01:31:54):
That's not looking at what really is going on in Miami.
With Tua that was excruciating to listen to.

Speaker 3 (01:31:58):
It is well imagine, So think back to what we
do here and what we've done the last three years.
We have at times picked at some of the things
that Jamiko has said to us from the podium or
in a seated interview, and it's nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
No like that. No, And that does happen all the time.
You know, context matters.

Speaker 3 (01:32:19):
And that's three head coaches we've now heard from, and
there's one more still to come later in the show
at five o'clock.

Speaker 2 (01:32:25):
I love shows like this. Yeah, but I mean, and
you saw this yesterday. I think a number of you
listening probably saw this to his reaction, I mean, he's
he's saying all the right things, He's giving off the
best possible body language.

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
He had no idea this season was going to go
like this. None.

Speaker 3 (01:32:48):
Yeah, he hasn't been unbelievable over his time there in Miami,
especially the time with coach McDaniel. But they do win
more often when he's out there in his when he
is on the fiel and when he is healthy. They
have been a winning team until this year. And I
think part of is the roster. I definitely think part
of it is him, and he just he doesn't really

(01:33:09):
look like the same player in his quickness to make
decisions because the numbers, like I've pointed him out a
couple times, the numbers from last week's game at the
end of the day looked fine. But when you really
realize what happened in that game, you have to look.
If you were watching it, you would know this. If
you were paying attention to the game as it unfolded,
you would know this. If you didn't, you just look

(01:33:29):
at the numbers, say, like, what are you benching this
guy for. It's not his fault. He was fine, he
wasn't fine. They went out there and here the offense
did nothing, and then the offense did nothing, and then
the offense did nothing again and again and again. Oh
the game's out of reach. Wake up, here we are,
let's go play some football. They just didn't do anything
for how long? Punt, interception, punt, field goal, punt, punt.
Here we are in the fourth quarter, down multiple scores,

(01:33:52):
and he piled up one hundred and fifty one now
one hundred and ninety two yards of offense they cranked
out in the final three drives of a game. They
had no chance to win because of his play, and
their offense is play. He was leading a loser offense
largely because of him.

Speaker 2 (01:34:06):
But again, what do you do if you're the Dolphins
and any team in this kind of situation where you
have the quarterback like this isn't I think a lot
of people kind of like tried to say this was
Dak Prescott a few seasons ago. Well, he's just good
enough to where you're not gonna lose a bunch of
games and you know, be at the top of the draft,
but he's not gonna get it done. Like, that's not Tua.

(01:34:30):
That's not the Dolphins. And it might have maybe been
on the way to being the Dolphins a couple of
years ago, but then the concussion started happening. And that's
why I say he never saw this coming. Because of
all the things that could have derailed his latest season,
I just don't think him just not being very good
was one of them. I think it would be concussions

(01:34:50):
or any number of injury type things that would Like I.

Speaker 3 (01:34:53):
Think the wording that McDaniel was using is also indicating
that he and Tua do not see eye to eye
on the offense.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
Which is another thing that's fascinating to me because McDaniel's
going to survive all of this with the record and
the quarterback they've invested all this money in. Those are
two things that would not be in his favor if
you're looking to kind of change things up and move on.

Speaker 3 (01:35:20):
And I would also like to, you know, I'd like
to stand up for Dak Prescott here for a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:35:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:35:24):
This is year six as a starter in Miami and
it will be the fifth time he will not start
a playoff game because his team did not qualify for
the playoffs. That's not the Cowboys under Dak, not even close.
They can't even get there. They're not winning enough games.
They're not playing good enough football. Dak's putting up best
numbers in franchise history. Dak's putting up numbers that put
him near the top of the league statistically, and especially

(01:35:46):
under coach McCarthy, they're putting up wins.

Speaker 2 (01:35:48):
Yeah, he's well, yeah, that's true, he actually has that.
That's another guy who has that over Justin Herbert. Stop
putting Justin Herbert at the top of all these quarterback lists.
That's what this conversation really needs to be about. It
last three years for prior to this year.

Speaker 3 (01:36:04):
Three years ago he led the league in passer rating
and touchdown percentage and a couple other things. Two years
ago he led the league in total yards passing, Last
year he led the league in completion percentage, and this
year all those numbers are down, and he leads the
league again in a one category interceptions. He's not playing
the type of football he once played. I can't wait
to see preseason lists.

Speaker 1 (01:36:25):
Yeah, you asked, what could they do?

Speaker 3 (01:36:28):
They have to hope somebody is interested in a deal
that they offer up a bunch of money to help
make the deal, because otherwise there's no way any team.
A benched quarterback that you don't believe in is not
very hotly interesting on the trade market. Makes too much money. Teams,
very few teams can have a current structure that allows
them to even absorb it. And they're guessing that nobody

(01:36:50):
can be convinced, oh, we are going to win now
that we have too that's impossible. If you think like that,
you're doing a terrible job. Could you maybe is there
something Everything is in place and your line amazing, and
you're also playing with a guy who has been hurt
and the worst kind of hurt. A concussion issue has
followed him throughout his career, and the next one could
be the last one. And I hate to think that

(01:37:10):
again personally for him, but that's obviously would have to
be a concern if you were on the other end
of the phone and figuring out a deal, wouldn't It
wouldn't cost you much in assets, but it would cost
you much a lot of money. And now you're the
team committed to this player that the Dolphins clearly don't
want to be committed to moving forward. Signature segment time
comes your way. Halfway point of our number three. That's

(01:37:31):
where we are, so our favorite one of our favorite
cities to visit here on the show. That isn't Houston.
It's out West. You know it, Hollywood. Next twelve minute
segment here on Sports Talk seven ninety four thirties on Thursdays.
But oftentimes we'll have plenty of material to drop in
here we do today. A couple of different places we
could go, but I already teas that we're headed out West.

(01:37:54):
Randy Newman's favorite place. I wish it wasn't about lac
A terrible song, but I hate it for what it represents.

Speaker 2 (01:38:02):
I like to use it in videos where the astros
beat them.

Speaker 1 (01:38:06):
I liked it naked Gun. Oh yeah, not as much
as you liked the juice. Well I do. I can
appreciate naked Gun. I love La.

Speaker 3 (01:38:15):
It was out in LA and they had a you know,
baseball game was part of it, h with the Angels
and Mariners.

Speaker 1 (01:38:22):
Gross a huge Ao West matchup.

Speaker 3 (01:38:26):
Well, they kind of had to go with the Angels
since mister October was an angel and he was going
to kill the queen.

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
Okay, and that concludes the plot. It's Rica Polazzo. What
was the one where? What was the part where?

Speaker 3 (01:38:42):
That's the one where at the end of the movie,
right before they rolled the credits, they were still at
the baseball stadium and OJ was in a wheelchair and
he went all the way down the stairs and then.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Flipped over over the field and then they played the music.
It was already cast it up before he got launched. Nordberg.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
May he rest wherever anyway. Okay, I saw this story,
and I mean shocked isn't probably the exact right word,
but it certainly made me take do a double take.
So Puka Nakua is in the news right now for
all the wrong reasons. And we'll get to that in
a second. He's not even the only Nakua in the

(01:39:20):
news for all the wrong reasons. What if I were
to tell you that there was LA athlete on LA
athlete crime going on here?

Speaker 3 (01:39:30):
What if you were to tell me that you hadn't
heard of either of these athletes?

Speaker 2 (01:39:33):
I hadn't. I mean, I don't even know how to
pronounce one of their names, the baller, the basketballer. I
should say a do I bid you a do throrow.

Speaker 1 (01:39:42):
I do buerreo? Is that how? It's not a boo
o'l Bagdaddy, he cried like a dog.

Speaker 3 (01:39:51):
Uh so, so Adu was involved with Puka nakua is brother.

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
Well, he wasn't really involved his vehicle one property. Yes, so,
the brother of Puka Nakua was one of two men
arrested over the weekend for allegedly stealing a vehicle that
reportedly belonged to the Lakers Forward. The men arrested Saturday
by the La Sheriff's Department are Trey Rose he's twenty seven,

(01:40:23):
and Sampson Nakua, also twenty seven and the brother of Puka.

Speaker 3 (01:40:29):
Yeah, and remember Samson is a former Panther, Saint Maler
and Colt.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
What was that third one?

Speaker 3 (01:40:36):
He's played for the Panthers two times. Uh huh, he's
been a maller briefly. He played two games there and
also spent time on rosters for the Colts and Saints.

Speaker 2 (01:40:46):
Is that m a U l e R? He mauled
people when he wasn't stealing their vehicle.

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):
Very curious what the alternate spelling would be if this
was a football team name, Yes, they would do. They
try to mall people in the USFL.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
I know you're in case you're wondering, and I know
you were. This is a newer model BMW sweet and.
In a release, the La Sheriff's Department said its deputies
were able to track the vehicle to the eighty four
hundred block of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. The two
men were arrested Saturday afternoon after allegedly taking a vehicle

(01:41:21):
without the owner's consent, and then released that night. There
were insufficient grounds to file a complaint under the California
Penal Code Section eight four nine B. It wasn't immediately clear,
so he knew them and he said they could borrow it.
And the message got, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:41:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
No, that's a very I would say plausible scenario here.
We don't know a lot of details because, as the
Sheriff's Department said, the investigation is ongoing, and they offered
no further comment.

Speaker 1 (01:41:56):
I love this.

Speaker 3 (01:41:57):
A is a Los Angeles Lakers player. A do the
row or theero?

Speaker 1 (01:42:02):
I do THEO. He does have ten more career points
than you do. Oh good, he's got you than Bronny.
He has less than Bronni barely. I guess how many
does Bronny have? Eleven?

Speaker 3 (01:42:18):
Well, I can definitely put the Rexler research team to
work on that, since they've had an off day today,
neglecting to recollect that. Brian Hoyer helped to engineer a
zero point scoring game in the postseason for the Texans
against the Chiefs. He turned the ball over five times.
There you go, lost two home games. They scored seven

(01:42:38):
and zero in those respective games.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
So Teresa and I went to that game. We had
seventy eight points behind Bronnie.

Speaker 2 (01:42:45):
Oh okay, he could catch him this year, he could
catch him this week.

Speaker 1 (01:42:48):
He's sixteen behind him just this year alone.

Speaker 2 (01:42:51):
Teresa and I went to that playoff game, we're standing
with our I think they gave out towels.

Speaker 1 (01:42:57):
They usually do. I probably got one somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:42:59):
And before you could even sit in your seat for
the opening kickoff, that Nile Davis. Nile Davis was running
directly towards us, and I was like, this does not
feel good.

Speaker 1 (01:43:11):
I looked at her. I'm like, we're not staying for
this whole game, and we didn't. But I'm sure they'll
score nah. Probably not ah, but surely he won't turn
the Yep he will. Oh, look it's a different way.

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):
He turned it over and then he threw another pick
and then he fumbled.

Speaker 1 (01:43:25):
It was just awful.

Speaker 2 (01:43:26):
But anyways, going back to this, of all the specific
weeks for another Nikua to be in the wrong or
in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, this is
when Samson chose to do this. I listen, He's already
had a run in. He had he was suspended for

(01:43:46):
a game by the UFL back in April. He slapped
a fan during an altercation following a loss.

Speaker 1 (01:43:52):
What is he Anthony Rendon? You remember that?

Speaker 2 (01:43:56):
What did he call him? What did the Angels fan
call him? Probably overpaid or something of that. Maybe saying
he was stealing money and Anthony Rin don't acted like
he was going to do something physical to him. As
part of that punishment, by the way, for slapping, said fan,
he also agreed to participate in community service.

Speaker 5 (01:44:13):
I just.

Speaker 2 (01:44:15):
It feels like he's hanging on by a thread to
whatever semblance of a football career he wanted to have.

Speaker 1 (01:44:20):
This probably doesn't help that. I wouldn't think so. I
just it's just the.

Speaker 2 (01:44:26):
Most bizarre story because it's two different teams in the
same city and one of them is stealing the other
guy's car.

Speaker 3 (01:44:33):
What is what's what's nicoua? Oh, so he's attached to
the Rams because his brother plays for them.

Speaker 1 (01:44:39):
Yeah, he's attached.

Speaker 3 (01:44:41):
I mean the other guy is like about is Jackson
Mahomes attached to the Chiefs in the same way?

Speaker 1 (01:44:46):
Definitely he was until Patrick said so.

Speaker 3 (01:44:49):
He hasn't luckily been in the news or had his
name mentioned in like a year. Thankful somebody got read
the Riot Act because he was in the news every
week for the wrong reasons. So that that's like this
on steroids, but it's still you associate it, Yeah, I
would think so. Sadly, Yeah, Pooka's very much nonsense. I mean,
I don't know what is appealing to an NFL player

(01:45:11):
like this player, or really any players that are prominent.
He's a very good player, He's obviously never not played
at an exceptionally high level. I'm his interest in appearing
with anybody on a live stream a YouTuber any like,
how is that entertaining to you?

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
I think when people see obviously he couldn't foot mouth
can't go any further in Well, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:45:37):
Apology was issued today. Yeah, I saw it. We'll get
to that next segment. When you see somebody whoever it is,
a celebrity, athlete, whatever, and that little Oh they're live
right now?

Speaker 1 (01:45:47):
Does you do you want to instantly click on it?

Speaker 3 (01:45:50):
I usually will check it out, depending on who it is.

Speaker 1 (01:45:52):
That's what he was banking on in the locker room.

Speaker 3 (01:45:55):
Yeah, he did that too. That's a separate incident. I
know what an idiot is.

Speaker 13 (01:45:59):
An idiot. We'll discuss next the a on Sports Talk
seven ninety which.

Speaker 2 (01:46:10):
Delta Bravo story involving Puka Nakoul would you like to
tackle first?

Speaker 3 (01:46:16):
Well, one doesn't really matter, and the other one if
he's telling the truth, that his apology would be impactful
otherwise got a little interest in anything from him?

Speaker 2 (01:46:25):
Well, are you okay? So the one that doesn't matter?
I'm assuming you're talking about the officials.

Speaker 3 (01:46:29):
Yeah, I mean do we care that what he's saying
may or may not be? I wish we knew it
was true and then maybe people would care.

Speaker 1 (01:46:35):
I don't know that it is. I don't realize. I guess, well,
he said.

Speaker 3 (01:46:40):
That on a live stream with some boso Sorry, Aiden Ross.
I'm sure I'll come around to some of these people
and why the rest of America feels the need to
make them famous, like what I'm not against where we
are and people making money on whatever platforms and building
a brand and being a live stream or a YouTuber.

(01:47:01):
I just don't I don't really understand what is Why
are people interested in this? Like what's interesting about it?
They just sit there and talk. I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (01:47:09):
Well, I mean that's all we're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:47:11):
No, but we're talking about something very specific and if
we were in LA, nobody would listen to us talking
about Houston sports all the time. I don't know what
it is that they're doing that is so interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:47:21):
Well, because it's Pooka and Akua, it is now. He's
already the person he's on with is now famous.

Speaker 2 (01:47:28):
Oh well, anyway, however you feel about it, this is
what he said. The refs are the worst. Some of
the rules aren't. These guys want to be These guys
are lawyers. I'm reading the quote. They want to be
on TV too. He's talking about the refs. They You
don't think he's texting his friends in the group chat like, Yo,

(01:47:49):
you guys just saw me on Sunday Night football. That
wasn't PI, but I called it. I don't think that
they're saying that. First of all, I don't think what's
the hockey leg? Who's officiating? Sean?

Speaker 1 (01:48:01):
Yeah, Ed's son. See what I did there.

Speaker 3 (01:48:04):
He's worked a bunch here in Houston this year. He
was the one, along with the rest of his crew
they work with all year. He spoke to us before
the season about a bunch of the stuff that we
always complain about.

Speaker 2 (01:48:13):
At any point during that conversation you had with him,
did he drop a yo.

Speaker 7 (01:48:17):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:48:18):
We did talk a lot about the chiefs and the
perception of the calls that they get. You haven't You've
just that you've been holding out on me. I mentioned
it the next day, I forgot this was in training camp.

Speaker 1 (01:48:28):
What did you say?

Speaker 3 (01:48:29):
I mean, I just said that. He says, Well, we
know they would say. Whether you want to believe him
or not, it's up to you. No calls that look
like that. We go back and review calls. That's not
what we're doing. That's not how it's taught. It's obviously
not how we see it when we're out there, and
we just don't feel like that as a reality, even
though we and he acknowledge, they're aware of whatever one thinks.

Speaker 2 (01:48:48):
I for one, am extremely happy they're not taking part
in the postseason. And unlike rich Eisen and he's by
his lonesome here, nobody is going to miss that crap
in the postseason.

Speaker 1 (01:48:58):
Ye, nobody.

Speaker 3 (01:48:58):
Officials, whether the lawyer's, accountants, business people. Yes, they are
not full time employees of the NFL. They do hold jobs,
and they work those jobs while they're reviewing all the
things they need to prepare for the NFL season, and
then in season all the stuff they need to do
to continue be what we hope are top flight officials.
I would hope that what he says is something that's

(01:49:19):
to them sounds like this is the kind of statement.
I would expect the Referees Union to have a statement
on is this what you really think?

Speaker 1 (01:49:28):
Like, that's who you think we are.

Speaker 3 (01:49:30):
That's how the perception you get when you're on the
field with us, when you talk to us, you know,
before kickoff, when you talk to us during the game,
when you're on the sidelines, and then you know you've
gotten up and said, dude, no, where's the flag?

Speaker 1 (01:49:40):
He pushed me, like, is this really what their relationship is?
Like that?

Speaker 3 (01:49:43):
That's what he thinks of an official who is bragging
to his friends about a bogus call, an incorrect call
he made just so he can be television famous. Look, man,
I'm on TV making bad calls. It's it just sounds ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (01:49:58):
When asked whether refs are really doing things like that,
by the way, in case you're wondering, like calling pass
interference when there wasn't any, Nikouis said, I mean these
guys are normal human beings too, Bro, What does that mean?

Speaker 3 (01:50:11):
That means what we were talking about yesterday on the
NBA side. They're gonna miss calls, so they're flawed.

Speaker 1 (01:50:16):
They're human.

Speaker 3 (01:50:17):
Well, if humans are flawed, which we are, this is
too it's too difficult speak for yourself. You don't have
to referee anything that's except the show. There's I don't
expect perfection. I do think we should want to utilize
replay to help us get there. And every sport has
a different level of pushback because of timing. I mean,

(01:50:37):
what if you opened review up just if it was
internal not you needed to throw a challenge flag. What
if every play got reviewed? You know how many times
they would be correcting the calls.

Speaker 1 (01:50:47):
Are we talking about the NBA now?

Speaker 3 (01:50:49):
Now I'm talking about the NFL, I know like a lot.
Just take the game where we had the nineteen penalties
called the other night on the team that won. Do
you think they were all correct? And what about all
the plays that they didn't call anything? There was no
holding on that play? Yeah, there probably was.

Speaker 2 (01:51:06):
NFL players can obviously be subject to fines for publicly
criticizing officials. In December of twenty twenty three, ironically, Patrick
Mahomes Andy Reid both fined for violating NFL rules that
about public criticism of game officials. In January, as we
talked about then and will remind you now, Joe Mixon,

(01:51:26):
Texans running back initially fined twenty five grand for his
comments after the Texans lost to the Chiefs in the
divisional round of the playoffs. His fine was later rescinded
because the NFL looked at things and they were like, well,
we already screwed him out of the game. We should
probably give him his money back. Why, well, that's what
I was told in the memo. That's not that's not

(01:51:48):
that's how I translated it.

Speaker 1 (01:51:49):
That's not what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:51:50):
What happened. What had happened was why did they give
him his money back? Because all seriousness they had, they
did a terrible job in getting to the point where
they wanted to find him because they had bad information.
Whatever they were looking at, reading gathering data from was
just it was wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:52:06):
I think he's not even the one that said it exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:52:08):
If I'm not mistaken, is I believe it was for
a comment that was not made by it.

Speaker 2 (01:52:12):
I like my version better where they were like, yeah,
we screwed that up, here's your money.

Speaker 1 (01:52:16):
I like that version.

Speaker 3 (01:52:18):
Okay, So Imay didn't really get fined twenty five thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:52:21):
He shouldn't have it, but he did. Maybe they'll rescind it.
Probably not.

Speaker 3 (01:52:25):
Well, see the difference now they do we send technicals
in the NBA. I don't think they were sending fine
Jeff Green should have had his from the bench rescinded.
He's just over there mining his own business, being old.
He wasn't minding his own business. There's some gunflapping going on. Well,
I believe there are some expletives lining.

Speaker 2 (01:52:41):
Maybe don't be so sensitive so we don't have to
have players or coaches saying you don't even belong out there,
the two of you and you over there, you're starstruck.

Speaker 3 (01:52:50):
I think it was in a cup game, whether it
was the Semis or the final, they made a call
that was wrong that they went back and changed.

Speaker 7 (01:52:59):
Oh it was.

Speaker 1 (01:52:59):
It was a Smitch Johnson, so it was a San
Antonio game. If nothing else. They made a.

Speaker 3 (01:53:04):
Call, he challenged it. During the course of the time
they were challenging it, he received a technical foul and
the challenge was successful. So they were wrong and he
was right, and so it overturned the play, which he
then had to have his team give a point up
because he got hit with a technical when he was correct.

Speaker 2 (01:53:23):
If I have the scenario, I think I'm trying to
follow along, and I think that's right, and that's not
even the most ridiculous thing involving Pukua akua.

Speaker 1 (01:53:34):
Okay, well I thought you would do this part.

Speaker 3 (01:53:36):
I hate even talking about it because I mean, I'm
about to curse about it.

Speaker 1 (01:53:41):
Well, that's all the more reason that I don't even
know what to say. I mean, I can't believe what
he said.

Speaker 3 (01:53:46):
I cannot believe what was asked of him, and it
definitely gives you an awful taste for what Again, I
don't know which even ones of them to name, but
I just don't What is it that they're providing, is
this is entertaining to people, the topics that they talk about,
the topics that they bring up, the people that we're
hearing from the way that they're I just I don't
even understand it. And if we're to believe that Puka

(01:54:08):
was completely oblivious to what he was led down this
path of creating some celebration, that he knew nothing about
the connotation from it, I mean, I don't know what
to believe from his apologistics.

Speaker 1 (01:54:21):
He had no idea. Obviously if he had at the time,
that would that's everything.

Speaker 2 (01:54:26):
I deeply apologize to anyone who was offended by my actions,
as I do not stand for any form of racism, bigotry,
or hate of another group of people. He'd probably keep
his head down this next week and he'd probably be
better off. I'm sure the Chargers would like that. All right,
we will take a quick time out.

Speaker 1 (01:54:44):
Football at five is coming up next.

Speaker 3 (01:54:49):
And one of us will be back tomorrow at two o'clock.
We got Rockets basketball tonight. By guess which one Pelicans
hosting Houston game two of his six kin road trip.
Get more into that as the hour continues. It obviously
in full. When the six o'clock hour begins with Rockets
launch pat Football at five has arrived here for us.

(01:55:10):
I mentioned earlier after we heard from the coach the
Dolphins who talked for three seconds later his quarterback. I
mentioned that was three of the four head coaches we
were going to hear from today. We heard from Pete
Carroll loves what Demiko's doing here in the h We
heard from Mike McDaniel, he changed quarterbacks. We heard from

(01:55:32):
Demiko Ryans he thinks things are going great and they
better stop Max Crosby on Sunday. Now it's time to
hear from another coach. I think it's going to be
out of work at the end of the year. There
are several job openings already in the NFL, several teams
looking for a head coach. Not too hard right now,

(01:55:52):
but when the time comes, when the season ends and
here's your window to interview this guy and these assistants
are available here at this time, I'm sure they'll go
full bore into it. Texans again, and I think for
a many years in the future will not be on
this list and will not be looking for a new
head coach. But I think the Cincinnati Bengals will say

(01:56:15):
goodbye to Zach Taylor at the end of the season.
He's been there since twenty nineteen. Again, the way the
NFL coaching lifespan goes, he's been there longer than every
coach in the NFL but seven. So just being there
since twenty nineteen, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Sean McDermott, Andy Reid,

(01:56:37):
Jim's brother, John Harbaugh, and Mike Tomlin. Those are the
only coaches that have been at their current stop longer
than Zach Taylor, and Zach Taylor holds a fifty and
sixty two record, and the Cincinnati Bengals have added four wins.

Speaker 1 (01:56:50):
To that total.

Speaker 5 (01:56:51):
This year.

Speaker 1 (01:56:51):
They've played fourteen times, they're four and ten.

Speaker 3 (01:56:53):
Granted, more than half the season was played without Joe Burrow,
but they've played very poorly since his return. Know that
that's how management feels. Neither does the media in Cincinnati.
What a spectacular back and forth between them earlier this
week when trying to determine is his contract through this
year through the year after?

Speaker 1 (01:57:14):
What does ownership think? Do you talk about it anyway?

Speaker 8 (01:57:18):
Say after the game there's some cast offs if you
look at it.

Speaker 1 (01:57:23):
Is through seven, correct.

Speaker 14 (01:57:24):
I'm not gonna respond to that. I just told you
I coach every day like it's my last one.

Speaker 1 (01:57:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:57:28):
Well, you don't get a chance to talk to ownership
or we don't get that opportunity. What kind of assurances
have you been given from owners?

Speaker 14 (01:57:35):
We just talk every week.

Speaker 6 (01:57:37):
Every week you've talked about your.

Speaker 14 (01:57:38):
Contractor every week we talk about everything. Well, the last
time spoke about your contract and status. It's not really
part of our conversation. It's every week. We're just trying
to curt together a great plan to win football games
and make sure our team's ready to go, make sure
I'm ready to go. So I know that's of curiosity
to you guys, but we're just focused on being the dolphin.

Speaker 6 (01:57:58):
Did Paris say that's reassessed after the season? Every year
them ask them and we don't get that chance.

Speaker 14 (01:58:05):
Okay, well'm sorry, I'm just being We would ask them, but.

Speaker 1 (01:58:11):
We don't get them. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:58:13):
The only thing missing is him saying, oh you don't
get sorry, suck it.

Speaker 3 (01:58:17):
It has been less than four hours since I spoke
to Texans owners Calan Hanna McNair.

Speaker 1 (01:58:23):
Well, they're more accessible.

Speaker 3 (01:58:24):
Sorry, and again, it wasn't a conversation about how many
more years just to me go out on his contract
or what I call serio or anything else. But there
are places in Cincinnati is probably at the top of
the list because of who their owner is and his
involvement in the team, and it's been like this forever.
There is a bad relationship between the media no matter

(01:58:45):
what is going on with the team, and the frustration,
even as pleasant as that was, is obvious with the
media there.

Speaker 1 (01:58:51):
What were you going to say?

Speaker 2 (01:58:52):
First of all, I can't wait until A they part
ways with him, and then B shortly thereafter, Joe Burrow
demands a trade because that's coming, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:59:00):
And he sounds like he's trying not to do that.
He was asked very specifically, you know, are you going
to be the quarterback here next year? And he basically said,
I can't envision this Anario where that's not the case.

Speaker 1 (01:59:10):
His agent will do it, don't worry. That's what he
pays him for.

Speaker 3 (01:59:13):
So I mentioned I talked to the owners, as did
other members of the media earlier today in advance of
their holiday bike giveaway with the players and Texans legend.
We did ask a little bit about football.

Speaker 2 (01:59:23):
But number two, he says to the media, we talk
about everything every week. And the media says, when's the
last time you talked to him about your contract? And
he goes, that's not part of the conversation. I'm sorry.
I was led to believe that when you said everything
that would fall under that unbrellab I.

Speaker 3 (01:59:39):
Mean about football, yeah, and game plan that is football.
But again, talking to the owner about how to prepare
for this next opponent. I mean, I do think Demiko
and Cal have constant conversations. I doubt Cal's talking about
do you think maybe y'all want to use this look
a little bit more this personnel group on offense. I mean,
I can call up Nick Cayley if you want, and
I'm curious if maybe you I want to, I don't know,

(02:00:02):
send a corner blitz. Maybe if they're at third and
eight and you see this look that they're giving you.
I don't think they're getting into.

Speaker 1 (02:00:07):
That now, and I don't think Canada is that either now.

Speaker 3 (02:00:10):
One thing they did say football related the ownership group
of the Houston Texans today was Jonathan Alexander of the
Chronicle asked him about why the belief earlier this year,
because we've talked to him multiple times throughout the year,
different occasions and different reasons, But this specific question was
pointed back to a conversation they'd had when the team
was three and five. They'd lost their first three, they'd

(02:00:30):
bounced back a little bit, but there's still two games
under with nine games remaining. Why the belief that this
team could do what they are now doing, And it
really stemmed from the same thing they usually say, leadership.
We believe in our leadership. We believe in Debiko Ryans,
we believe in what he stands for, and that this
team follows in line with how they want to be,
what they want to do, how they play, and they again,

(02:00:53):
you never know that it's gonna be right.

Speaker 1 (02:00:55):
It's a great thing. It sounds great, but obviously it
is literally exactly what happened. You've brought it up multiple times.

Speaker 3 (02:01:00):
If you're oh and three and you win nine out
of twelve, not out of eleven, and you've won six straight,
those are the types of things There shouldn't be any
preseason notion about where you are and what are you doing. Okay,
well we thought you were gonna suck, and you won
the eleven games.

Speaker 1 (02:01:14):
Your coach of the year.

Speaker 3 (02:01:15):
We're watching dmko Ryans earn coach of the year support
for what he's done during the season. We want you
to vote forever a coach of the year.

Speaker 2 (02:01:23):
Yeah, here's all the warm and fuzzies in year one,
here's all the warm and fuzzies.

Speaker 1 (02:01:26):
In year two.

Speaker 2 (02:01:27):
You started own three and now here you are pushing
to not only get into the postseason, but to actually
win the division.

Speaker 1 (02:01:34):
That's not an accident, that's not.

Speaker 3 (02:01:36):
I think I'll have a little bit of support, but
I think it'll be virtually impossible. I don't even know
if he'll get any first place votes.

Speaker 1 (02:01:43):
Well, he's no Kevin Stefanski.

Speaker 3 (02:01:45):
Well, he's not coaching a team that's gonna be the
first year second seed with a second year quarterback. And
I think the lot in one of them is a
first year coach and Mike rabel and with the Patriots,
the other one being Sean Payton with the Broncos. I
don't know that people will know. Maybe there's a little
bit of been there, done that. Sean McVay is doing
a pretty awesome job with the Rams again. Yeah, and

(02:02:06):
I know they have talent, and I know they brought
in Devontae Adams and they're good. But you're still a
good coach if you're keeping them at that level when
everyone's after you. I think Mike McDonald in Seattle they
have the same record. He's doing it with Sam Darnold.
He's doing an awesome job with the Seahawks. Over the
course of the year. Who do you think has had
the worst offensive line? The Chargers of the Texans. Probably

(02:02:29):
the Chargers.

Speaker 1 (02:02:31):
They've had as many needed changes there's have been because
of major injuries.

Speaker 2 (02:02:35):
You're just thinking about he's not getting any and nor
should he, I guess, getting any love for coaching his
way through that.

Speaker 1 (02:02:42):
I guess yeah. I mean, Chargers are tenant for.

Speaker 3 (02:02:46):
And we just we gave you the sack numbers earlier,
and there's more to it. You know your past protection numbers,
and you know EPA on dropbacks. There's a lot of
different ways to look at what your quarterback has done
way beyond sacks, and pressure rate is part of it.

Speaker 1 (02:02:59):
I mean the game and they won.

Speaker 3 (02:03:00):
The Chargers won on whatever primetime game that was against
the Eagles, I can't remember. It was Thursday or Sunday
or Monday.

Speaker 1 (02:03:07):
Last Monday.

Speaker 3 (02:03:08):
They went into overtime and they won on their fifth
field goal. They scored an opening drive touchdown and then
kicked five field goals over the rest of the game.
Their defense has gotten better. They forced five Eagles turnovers.
But what they're doing and how they were getting there.
The pressure rate that Herbert faced, I don't think it
was the highest measured in a win, but it was

(02:03:30):
like the next highest. It was forty nine point seven
or just some ungodly pressure rate to go along with Yeah,
he's getting sacked all the time, and he's had a
bunch of games where he's gotten hit ten eleven times
just like CJ all year last year. Now everybody can
see that difference, right. There aren't games this year, certainly
not since he's returned, and most of the games prior
to his concussion, he wasn't getting hit nine, ten, eleven, twelve,

(02:03:52):
fourteen times in a game.

Speaker 1 (02:03:54):
Or it was less than I thought it was going
to be.

Speaker 3 (02:03:55):
Actually, it's been like a two sat game has equaled
a four or five hit game. That's you want that
to go hand in hand. And some of these sacks
are okay. He dropped back and then he tried to,
you know, step up in the pocket. He tried to
go through this a gap that was he got sacked
for a three yard loss.

Speaker 1 (02:04:12):
They haven't all been he drops back and off he goes.
Because number have missed their block. No, there's been a few,
but far far fewer than in previous seasons. I gave
you a tidbit of the other bite that I was
going to play Aaron Rodgers. I thought he gave a
very interesting answer in trying to create some look at
what we have done this year and who we have
done it with, and he was describing his teammates in

(02:04:34):
a very interesting way.

Speaker 8 (02:04:36):
Anyways, after the game, there's some catstoffs. If you look
at our roster, which it makes it really special. You know,
Kenny Gamwell signed a next to nothing contract. You know,
Connor Hayward after that had a touchdown run. You know
marqu has been on a couple of teams. Adam Thiel
and got cut. Samuel was on the street for a

(02:04:58):
long time. So said line about the character of the
guys were brought.

Speaker 1 (02:05:01):
In, All right, what do you think?

Speaker 3 (02:05:03):
The follow up question was to that answer, and what
do you think Aaron Rodgers?

Speaker 1 (02:05:08):
Well, if you know the question, you could No, I
don't know the question.

Speaker 3 (02:05:12):
So he's giving love to his teammates discarded by that team,
doesn't know, no love for this team. Are the volleyballs?
It says a lot for the character of the guys
on this team. This was the immediate follow up when
he essentially called them cast offs.

Speaker 1 (02:05:25):
Do you consider yourself for of those cast offs too? No?
Do you consider yourself for of those cast offs too?

Speaker 5 (02:05:31):
No?

Speaker 1 (02:05:31):
I'm not a care. I mean, it's a totally fair question.

Speaker 3 (02:05:38):
And he's going to the Hall of Fame, so it
may seem unfair, but we're talking about where he is now.
Where he is now is Green Bay decided it was
Jordan Love's time. Okay, so you can go. He went
to the Jets, obviously got hurt and then played an
entirely healthy season, started every game, and they went nowhere.

Speaker 1 (02:05:55):
He was not good.

Speaker 3 (02:05:56):
They were not good. He's now in Pittsburgh, his third
team in four seasons. It's a reasonable question to ask,
even though it sounds ridiculous, and they're gonna win the division.
They're gonna win the division. He's played very well this year.
He's coming off a very good performance. They're coming off
a very good performance, and he's definitely going to the
Hall of Fame.

Speaker 1 (02:06:13):
Oh yeah, first ballot.

Speaker 2 (02:06:15):
All the way the Texans injury report with some interesting tidbits.

Speaker 1 (02:06:20):
We'll get to that and more when we return.

Speaker 13 (02:06:24):
The a on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (02:06:31):
You know, I thought I would be happy watching that
podcast where Fred van Vliet and Kevin Durant were talking
about the things they're gonna do once Fred gets healthier,
and I mean, it's awesome to think about.

Speaker 1 (02:06:43):
It just made me sad. Now I'm sad. Like a
picture from twenty fourteen. December eighteenth, Tell the people what
you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (02:06:53):
Usually in the morning, sometime between seven thirty and eight thirty,
I'll get a text from AC. It could be a
a reel he wants me to watch, b another reel
he wants me to watch, or something about dropping off
the kid, or here's me right now, just to give
an indication of maybe save it for later in the

(02:07:13):
day when we want to go back and forth with
anything super important for the show, because we only.

Speaker 1 (02:07:16):
Text about the show. We're not even friends.

Speaker 3 (02:07:20):
This morning, a little bit later in the day, but
still early in the am, he sent over a picture
of telling me what he was up to at that
present time. He goes, here's me right now. You told
me we had Taylor mcaarg. Yeah, I wanted to make
sure I didn't spring that on you set that up
earlier in the week.

Speaker 1 (02:07:34):
Great interview if you missed that.

Speaker 3 (02:07:35):
By the way, Taylor McCarg talk at college football with
us earlier today, so you can catch that via our
podcast page, which I'm sure you're already subscribing to right
there at sports Talk seven ninety dot com or via
the iHeartRadio app absolutely free. But yeah, I wanted to
make sure he was aware of that, and he told
me where he was, where he was was enjoying a holiday,

(02:07:55):
probably a holiday party, if you will, maybe a cookie
decorating over at the school with young Carson. And the
picture he said obviously jogged in my mind. I've been there,
done that, scrolled back in my phone to probably one
of the earliest pictures I have, and there I was
on this exact day, December eighteenth, twenty fourteen, at school

(02:08:18):
with Ryan as he was eating a Christmas cookie. I
was not at school with him today as he's trying
to get to Christmas vacation as a junior in high school.

Speaker 1 (02:08:31):
No, I mean, it's it is. I asked you, I said,
does are you sad now? And that's why I brought
it up. When he said it made him sad.

Speaker 3 (02:08:38):
He was trying to make sure I was sad, and
I said, yes, I am sad that my son is
doing what I'm glad he's doing. Growing up.

Speaker 2 (02:08:47):
Yeah, getting older, getting older, evolving, all those things. But yeah,
I just I when I think about how short, ah
that was, relatively like the taw it seems onen't. I mean,
the years are the years. But every time I see him,

(02:09:09):
I'm like, oh my gosh, she's a giant now. I
hope it continued, I never say that about Samantha. To
be fair, that's very nice of you to acknowledge. I'm
sure she appreciates that.

Speaker 1 (02:09:18):
She knows what I mean. It's accurate. She's tiny, she's
pocket sized. It's accurate.

Speaker 8 (02:09:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:09:25):
No, they're both fantastic kiddos. And he's very happy to
be out by the way.

Speaker 1 (02:09:30):
Good, like you could be checked you don't have school tomorrow. No, well,
here's the deal.

Speaker 2 (02:09:34):
At the end of the party today, you have the
option you being take him with you a child. Yeah,
and apparently all but five were checked out. I feel
terrible for those five kids. Get in the truck with me.
Come on, let's go to Dave and Busters or something.
I know your mom couldn't pick you up or they
got to work.

Speaker 7 (02:09:50):
What.

Speaker 2 (02:09:51):
I just feel bad, like those five kids are like
sitting around like, really, mom and dad, Really.

Speaker 1 (02:09:55):
You couldn't take me home too. I just feel bad
for those kids. Oh, well, you clearly don't not your kid.
That's so mean. Well, you didn't take them anywhere. You
left them there.

Speaker 2 (02:10:09):
That's because Teresa would have never gone for it. There
you go, you'd have to deal with them. She's like me, Well,
I would have brought the kid home, and you know
you play with Carson, and that I would have it.

Speaker 3 (02:10:16):
Wrong with learning a little bit during the holidays. Don't
be out tomorrow and the next week and the following week.

Speaker 2 (02:10:21):
Learning how to break down refined sugar more like it,
because that's all they were doing today was kind of
hopping them up and then sending them on.

Speaker 1 (02:10:28):
Their way to us. I understand. So the injury report
today's I know it sounds I'm not trying to say
it this way, but I do think we have a
pretty good idea of what the Texans are doing, and
when we're dealing with injuries that we see weekly and
maybe injuries we see in game, gives us a pretty
good idea of what I think we're going to see.
It's the same thing I've been telling you for the
last two days and really for the last three weeks,

(02:10:50):
which is really good because it means while they're trying
to get players ready for the game, they are appropriately
listing in them on the injury report as dictated by
the league.

Speaker 3 (02:10:59):
But that eight players that did not practice yesterday. I
told you yesterday I figured six of them at least
would today, and they did. And I was out there
at practice obviously today to help you guys learn that
information as it unfolded. But Aziz al Shier, Deniko Autry,
Kamari Lasker, Sheldon Rankins, and e J. Speed, all non
practice players yesterday, were limited today, and Nick Chubb went
from being limited yesterday to a full participant today. Same

(02:11:22):
for Daryl Taylor, Taylor and Watson Justin Watson full participants today.
Neither one of them are on the roster yet second
week of the open practice window for Watson, Tarrell in
his second day, Taylor in his second day with the
open practice window, So if there's a need at either positions,
you could see them activated this week. Currently there is not,
so I would not expect either one of them to

(02:11:43):
be And Trent Brown did not practice yesterday, same hand
injury he's not practiced with in previous weeks.

Speaker 1 (02:11:49):
He practiced today in full.

Speaker 3 (02:11:50):
He will be starting at right tackle once again, and
I think each of those other five players I mentioned
will also play their normal number of reps. Jake Hansen
was added to the injury report with the chest and
he has continued to be part of their very very
good special teams unit. But I wouldn't suspect this would
be too big of a concern. Still, expect to see
him out there on Sunday unless something changes, and if

(02:12:10):
it does, we'll tell you about it tomorrow and what
he marks. And Derek Singley Junior, as I mentioned earlier today,
we're not at practice today.

Speaker 1 (02:12:17):
They did not practice.

Speaker 3 (02:12:18):
There is concern about Stingley Junior, in my opinion, probably
more so than Woody in that he's done this in
previous weeks, though this is a new reason. This is
the ankle injury that he suffered in game on Sunday,
So there's probably concern in both of their cases.

Speaker 1 (02:12:33):
Not to spring something on you.

Speaker 2 (02:12:34):
But I kind of am because I want to make
sure that we have enough time to do this now.
I have not told you guys about full armor, firearms
and gun range, so listen up all day to day.
But you're gonna want to hear this. So my guy
Rob and of course Brenton James over there, we've been
talking about doing this for a while. Seeing as how

(02:12:55):
this is my last day before I go on vacation,
I'm gonna go ahead and refer to myself as Anti Clanton.
You're gonna go with this, right You're gonna totally buy
into this gimmick, aren't you.

Speaker 3 (02:13:04):
Wex I mean, I'm kind of hopeful Santa Clinton will
fly down the chimney at the Wexler household come the
eve of the twenty fifth.

Speaker 1 (02:13:11):
You don't want me in your chimney, that's awesome. You
have me nowhere near your Chinny Anta Clinton.

Speaker 3 (02:13:15):
Listen up, listeners, this is a pretty sweet little holiday
gift for you.

Speaker 1 (02:13:18):
It's well, and it's not just one, it's two. So
here's the deal.

Speaker 2 (02:13:21):
I was talking with Rob, We were talking with the
ownership over there, and we meaning all of us, wanted
to give away a free month of shooting over at
full armor firearms and gun range anytime you want for
a month.

Speaker 1 (02:13:34):
You head in there, You take in the range.

Speaker 2 (02:13:37):
Obviously, everybody there is going to be so fantastically friendly
and get you set up with a ton of different
weapons that you can rent out to use on the
range if you so choose. But a month of shooting
over at full armor firearms and gun range. And I
thought to myself, well, how do we give this away
in a way that would not only be fun, but
would really scream a team this time of year, Well

(02:14:01):
of course, I'm gonna say die Hard, right, sounds like
it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:14:05):
There's no other way to do this.

Speaker 2 (02:14:06):
We're talking about guns and we're talking about the greatest
Christmas movie ever.

Speaker 1 (02:14:11):
How many times do you think you've seen die Hard? Uh? Several?
I don't know. Oh, thank you. That's more like it.

Speaker 6 (02:14:17):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:14:18):
I don't even talking about the sequels. I'm just talking
about the original. Very important here, firearms, die Hard, I
can see it. I mean it goes hand in hand,
you know.

Speaker 2 (02:14:26):
So I was like, okay, let's do some trivia and
this guy, I know you know his face, but you
have to know his name.

Speaker 1 (02:14:36):
Two of you get this name, just the first name.

Speaker 2 (02:14:40):
I don't even know if his last name's in the credits,
let alone the script or anything like that. He's part
of Hans Gruber's little Eso Terrist regime exactly German European.

Speaker 1 (02:14:54):
What does he say? Judging by the wardrobe? Very slick.

Speaker 3 (02:14:58):
Okay, So you're asking for the name of his specific
henchman terrorist in the movie Diehard. Correct if you have
the answer to this a specific person, Yes, his first
name leader.

Speaker 1 (02:15:10):
No, Ans Brumer is the leader. Yeah, I'm waiting for
you to who who specifically are you looking.

Speaker 2 (02:15:14):
For seven one three two one two five seven ninety
seven one three two one two five seven ninety If
you know the answer two of you can get a
free month of shooting over at full armor.

Speaker 1 (02:15:23):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (02:15:24):
Earlier in the film, his brother gets off and then
he has something written on his sweater. Now I have
a machine gun. Ho ho ho right right. Uh, he
was a brother of a very prominent member of the
terrorist group. What is that brother's first name? And it's

(02:15:47):
not a common spelling. There's your hint.

Speaker 1 (02:15:49):
You do not spell it correctly for shosh.

Speaker 2 (02:15:52):
Well, no, you don't have to spell say you don't have,
but I'm just saying that's your hint the name.

Speaker 3 (02:15:56):
If you were unfamiliar with the movie and who's in it,
there are more than half of the key characters, and
I think more than half are only known by one name.
You don't know their first name, you don't know their
last name exactly. The limo driver, yes, not a terrorist. No,
he's not a brother.

Speaker 7 (02:16:16):
Not.

Speaker 1 (02:16:16):
Well, they might, but we don't know about him in
the film.

Speaker 3 (02:16:19):
So you're asking for the person who lived longer in
the movie.

Speaker 1 (02:16:23):
Mm hmm uh. Spoiler alert, Well, we didn't give the
main spoiler alert almost to the credits. There you go, see,
I was it was so we were so close to
going a whole segment like this without wex giving that
kind of hint. But yeah, seven one, three, two, five,
seven ninety. Hopefully two of you guys get that, and
Merry Christmas, Happy holidays. All right, we have two winners.

Speaker 3 (02:16:43):
They knew that it was Carl with a K not
Ticagi or Thornberg or Ellis or Theo or Argyle other
one namers from Diehard.

Speaker 1 (02:16:54):
Ticagi will not be joining us for all the rest
of his life.

Speaker 3 (02:16:57):
Well done. Everybody knows dieheard loves Diehard. That's a heck
of a giveaway as well.

Speaker 1 (02:17:02):
I tried. All right, when we come back in case
you missed it, next.

Speaker 3 (02:17:07):
It is time first case we missed it, acto way
through the final hour of the program.

Speaker 1 (02:17:11):
That's what we do for you.

Speaker 3 (02:17:12):
Some items we've not yet discussed or things that we
need to revisit. Among the things we need to revisit
rather surprising, at least to me from a timing standpoint,
the University of Texas Longhorns in advance of their game
and really the twenty twenty sixth season of their bowl
game coming up more the season ahead, they decided that
their defensive coordinator need not work for them any longer
and they.

Speaker 1 (02:17:32):
Said goodbye to Pete.

Speaker 3 (02:17:33):
Kwatkowski also said goodbye to Duayna Kena, their defensive backs coach.
It was his second stint with the Longhorns. And their
new defensive coordinator is in place, and they announced it
they are hiring and he's been hired. Will must Champ,
who's worked would have been half the SEC if there
weren't nine thousand teams in the SEC. But he's been
just about everywhere. Had been doing work as an analyst

(02:17:56):
with Georgia most recently previous been been a DC there,
a head coach in the SEC at two different spots,
and now returns to the forty Acres where he was
from two thousand and eight to twenty ten, part of
one of their national championship hopeful teams, making it all
the way to that point in their season, and they
had a good scoring defense this year. Kwat Kowski was

(02:18:17):
up for Assistant of the Year in previous seat last year.
As a matter of fact, the Broils award over all,
their defense probably was a little bit disappointing to the
talent that they had this year, and maybe that is
reason number one they decided to make this change, brought
it up earlier, and just in the timing of it
seems a bit odd the season for them. Regular season
ended earlier earlier than they didn't play in the conference

(02:18:38):
title game, so it's been over for weeks and practice.

Speaker 1 (02:18:41):
Has begun for their bowl game.

Speaker 3 (02:18:43):
They've decided to make this change now, got a couple
more weeks of practice before they faced the team with
an interim head coach. And there's another story on that.
Maybe save that for tomorrow. Maybe have even more information
on that. Just last segment, we mentioned the injury report
for the Texans, didn't mention the injury for the Raiders
as suspected. I think we see Max Crosby in the

(02:19:04):
same situation that most of the Texans who did not
practice on Wednesday, they're likely to play on Sunday, and
there's six of them that all practice in some capacity today.
Max Crosby did not practice yesterday, limited today, obviously headed
towards likely seeing the field unless something happens between now
and then. That's of great concern to the Texans offense.

(02:19:25):
He's easily their most important defensive player. If he has
a poor day, it's likely their defense does the same.
Little focus probably for the Texans on him wouldn't hurt anybody,
know Whatdy marks today practice? No Derek Stingley Junior at practice.
But Nick Chubb, even from his limited work yesterday, now
a full participant. He'll be active on Sunday and he
will probably be RB one if Woody Marx doesn't play.

(02:19:48):
But I don't think he will hold the dominant RB
one role that he held when the season began over Woody,
even though Woody won't be there if that's the case,
because I do think Juwar Jordan, if there's only two
healthy running backs tailback in this game, he will get
a very prominent role in their game plan this week.
But we'll see if all three of them are up

(02:20:08):
either way. Jordan was signed to the active roster if
you did not know that earlier in the week, so
no need for an additional elevation. He actually had more remaining,
but now he's just flat out on the roster.

Speaker 1 (02:20:19):
What else do we have, Josh.

Speaker 15 (02:20:20):
Just to tack onto that right there, Wex said what
he marks has become a fantasy football darling. It's the
fantasy playoffs, a lot of people are counting on him,
So I just want to give everybody a little bit
of caution here. Even if he does play, as you
were talking about that workload, kid, hasn't.

Speaker 3 (02:20:33):
He been out a fantasy football nightmare and that he
became a starter. So if you're lucky enough to have
had him or lucky enough to be the first of
the waiver wire to land him, every week he leaves
the game, and.

Speaker 1 (02:20:46):
Last week was the worst of all. Not only did
he leave the game early, you got screwed out of
a fantasy football touchdown because they deemed it a fumble return.
And I'm not aware of anybody scoring system that would
have given that to him. I know in ours I
have him.

Speaker 3 (02:21:02):
I'm not in the playoffs, so it didn't matter, but
there was no touchdown for me.

Speaker 1 (02:21:06):
I hated this season. That's interesting.

Speaker 15 (02:21:09):
On most platforms you did get the touchdown for what
he mark, so I know I did in my league,
but I can I'll tell you this. Fifteen points against
the Chiefs, sixteens against the Jags, fifteen against the forty
nine ers. So he has had some good games. It's
just games where he played like the Titans where you'd
think he'd do something. He fell on his face, So
just per see what caution guys. It could get a
little harry here. We don't know how they're going to
split up that workload. What else do we have Anthony

(02:21:30):
Richardson cleared to practice. He actually went out there. Phil
Rivers is still the starter, is what Stiken is saying.
We know that, but what's interesting is he's getting on
the field, but he's still having issues from that eye
injury to where his eyesight is not back to one
hundred percent real quick.

Speaker 2 (02:21:46):
Yeah, it was a Freudian slip on your part. I'm
sure that's how we should refer to him for the
remainder of the time. He plays quarterback at the age
of forty four because he's too old Rivers exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:21:57):
He's not Philip, who was the uh pseudo dad on
The Fresh Prince Phil Uncle Phil, Uncle Phil Phil Banks. Yeah, okay,
I don't think I can do it, though.

Speaker 2 (02:22:09):
I think he was referred to as Philip on the show,
especially from viv.

Speaker 1 (02:22:13):
Yeah, I think uncle Phil. We can still go with Philip.
That was the last time Will Smith was tall.

Speaker 3 (02:22:18):
Right, I think the Anthony richards situation is, while extremely different,
the specifics of it are going to be kind of
the same to what Cleveland's doing. And with Deshaun Watson,
they've been cleared to practice. There's no expectation that they're
going to return, but if they're healthy enough to get
something done this year on the field, get out on
the field, all the things they can help going into
the off season for what might be in store for

(02:22:39):
them next year.

Speaker 1 (02:22:40):
And I don't know what it is in Cleveland. I
do know what it is in Indianapolis.

Speaker 3 (02:22:44):
They would love to see Anthony Richardson fight for the
starting job again or at least be there. While maybe
Daniel Jones is back, maybe not, but he's not healthy
enough to play in a game because of what Josh
mentioned about his vision. But he's healthy enough to participate
in practice. And that's just a good thing for a
young player. Remember how little he played at Florida, how
little he's now played in the NFL. Not being able

(02:23:04):
to practice again for this very ridiculous, unique and unfortunate
injury he suffered pregame with a band. This is for
him to get better, to take advantage of what little
time he has. He's not the backup, and if Phil
Rivers cannot go, they will be turning to Riley Leonard.
And if you heard the simulations earlier, they will be
beating both the Jaguars and the Texans down the stretch

(02:23:27):
this season for different reasons.

Speaker 1 (02:23:29):
What else do we have?

Speaker 15 (02:23:30):
How about this, Let's go a little baseball. Martin Maldonado,
according to chanlerom joining the Braves as a special assistant
to Major League operations. We always talked about maybe Maldy
will get into coaching. Perhaps this is the first step
in that journey. Yeah, I think it absolutely is. I'm
sure he could look at what he's done statistically the
last couple of seasons and even his season here.

Speaker 3 (02:23:53):
I don't think there's something he can't do anymore because
he can't hit for the last five years, but he
has been a backup for the last five years, the
majority of Houston, then last year and the year before
with the Padres and the White Sox. He's gonna hit
one fifty. He's going to hit a couple of homers.
He can defend, he can throw guys out, and he

(02:24:13):
can call a great game, and he can get your
pitchers prepared.

Speaker 1 (02:24:16):
So if he wanted to.

Speaker 3 (02:24:17):
I feel pretty confident somebody would find value for him
as a player on their bench, as the backup catcher.
Maybe you have a young catcher you want him to
help work with, whatever the case may be. I don't
think the Braves have that in mind, but maybe in
a pinch, Maybe in a pinch.

Speaker 1 (02:24:33):
Special assistant to the GMS.

Speaker 3 (02:24:34):
An interesting start to his path towards continuing as a
baseball There's more baseball in his future, though he's part
of the team that will be playing. I don't know
the location of where that particular country's opening pool play
games are in the World Baseball Classic.

Speaker 1 (02:24:53):
But he will be playing. How many games are gonna
be here in Houston.

Speaker 3 (02:24:58):
I think they have two sets, couldn't tell you the
number of games, but four pool play teams here and
then another set of games after that. No Altuvay in
any of them. Uh hell, I know, not in the
games here in Houston, none of them. He'll be playing
for Venezuela elsewhere.

Speaker 1 (02:25:12):
No, I'm gonna I'm actually gonna kidnap it. There will
be more than one Astro participating. I'll give you that.
That's unfortunate, It's it's fine. I don't know if it's fine.
It wasn't fine last time.

Speaker 3 (02:25:21):
We do have tickets to give away. We'll do that
in the final segment, as we always do here on
the eighteen.

Speaker 2 (02:25:27):
The season of giving continues, the summer of fun continuing.

Speaker 1 (02:25:32):
In this case, it would be the season of taking illegally?

Speaker 3 (02:25:35):
What do you mean? Go ahead, what do you mean?
Ask your question why? Because you're going to be asking
to name the person who took something illegally?

Speaker 1 (02:25:46):
I see what you what you meant? Now? You threw
me off for a second. There, all right?

Speaker 2 (02:25:50):
We have been giving away these tickets all week. We
will continue to do so. Here pair of tickets to
see Ron White live March twenty seventh the Smart Financial
Center at Sugarland. Tickets are on sale that out smart
financial Center dot net. And a pair of tickets to
Monster Energy Ama Supercross that's going to be January thirty,
first over at NRG Stadium. Tickets are on sale for

(02:26:12):
that event right now at ticketmaster dot com. You're going
to have to have been listening to basically the entire
hour when we've already given away tickets or we've already
done a giveaway before. But this is going to be different.
This is not diehard trivia. This is real life, as
Wes just mentioned. So we were talking about the fact

(02:26:34):
that Pooka Nakua has been in the news for all
the wrong reasons lately. And he's not even the only
Nikua who has been in the news for the wrong reasons.
His brother was accused of stealing a member of the
Lakers barely vehicle. I just want the name of that brother.

(02:26:58):
We mentioned his name very very much like you know, Puka.
It's a very very unique first name. Some might say biblical,
although the spelling is a little bit different. Seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three
two one two five seven ninety If you can name
Pukah Nicoua's brother, just me his first name, that's all,

(02:27:21):
and you can have a chance to go to those events.

Speaker 1 (02:27:24):
All right, what are we gonna do? It's the last
segment before I leave forever.

Speaker 3 (02:27:29):
Just to add to the trivia question, mm hmm. If
you can name Puka Nicoua's brother that was involved in
that very specific story.

Speaker 1 (02:27:39):
Oh does he have others?

Speaker 3 (02:27:40):
Don't say Kai, don't say Isaiah, don't say Thai.

Speaker 1 (02:27:45):
They can none of them if they'll be wrong. I
want to get the answer right, don't say those names.
How many siblings total does he have? I'm gonna go
with several. My goodness, I believe there are four other siblings,
one of whom is not a brother, besides the one
you named. Once, I gave the name of three of
the bothers. Got you, Okay, there's also a sister. All right?

(02:28:11):
When are you going to be watching Diehard over the holidays?

Speaker 3 (02:28:15):
I mean, it's not quite like Christmas Story where it's
played twenty four hours a day.

Speaker 1 (02:28:21):
You have no choice depending on the show.

Speaker 3 (02:28:23):
Like Shawshank, where if the television's on and you have
lots of channels, it's probably on one of them. But
it's on quite a bit during the holidays. I'm sure
I'll catch it. You don't watch that up a time? Hey,
you guys want to watch Diehard?

Speaker 2 (02:28:35):
Well, see, I've got It's kind of become like an
impromptu and unplanned tradition the last several years on Christmas Eve,
as I was, I may or may not have been
assembling different things the night before Christmas. I if I
was going to do that and I knew it was
going to take me a while, that's what I would
throw on in the theater, of course, because she's like.

Speaker 1 (02:28:56):
I'm not watching that again.

Speaker 3 (02:28:57):
I know you want this to be your outing topic.
I do not come on, So you got to give
your thoughts on I'll let you send in your stone
cold locks. You cant introduced tomorrow at four thirty, but
you're going to need to verbalize your thoughts about Texans
Raiders and Cowboys Chargers and Jaguars Broncos right here in

(02:29:18):
the next few minutes. But before you get into that,
yesterday's show ended with you teasing your New Year's resolutions
for this program, which we have not yet heard today.

Speaker 1 (02:29:29):
Oh man, you're gonna make me remember that.

Speaker 3 (02:29:32):
You're the one who brought it up. You don't have
any more shows this year. It's gonna be twenty twenty
six before we hear from you again. During the two
to six part. Sure, what I was referring to, though,
this is you just want us to be better something simple. No,
you want us to stay on topic more.

Speaker 1 (02:29:47):
No, you want to I want that less way less.

Speaker 3 (02:29:51):
You're saying, I'm forbidding a few topics next year, diehard,
oj Norm MacDonald, what else?

Speaker 1 (02:30:00):
JFK no, JFK talk in twenty twenty six. I don't
know what else do I veer off on, like if
you want to combine two of your your your things.

Speaker 3 (02:30:11):
You talk about a lot and are very good at
did did we not get a sports item from the
President today?

Speaker 1 (02:30:21):
I should know this, But now you were listening to
it earlier? I can't remember.

Speaker 3 (02:30:24):
Now he's introduced a sporting event. I know I just
heard this you were playing. I wasn't playing it. I
was playing it. I was listening to it. Really, you
can save it. I'll save it for a day you're
not here.

Speaker 1 (02:30:40):
I know that's.

Speaker 7 (02:30:43):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:30:43):
I don't do impressions like that. I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (02:30:48):
See now, I've got like pickleball in my head, and
that's not it. The Patriot Games. Oh yeah, somebody said that.

Speaker 1 (02:30:54):
For me for day athletic events.

Speaker 2 (02:30:56):
Someone we both know sent that to me and it
was yeah, it's like the caption's the best part is
he talking about the Hunger Games.

Speaker 1 (02:31:04):
It's not the Hunger Games. You don't have to eat, No,
it's it was different. All right, So your your football thoughts.
The Jaguars are gonna go to Denver and loose the
soundly more.

Speaker 3 (02:31:17):
I think we're gonna be able to re introduce bashing
Trevor Lawrence or the just lose.

Speaker 2 (02:31:22):
How about this. I'm not even kidding when I say this.
I could see not one, but two defensive scorers by
the Broncos in that game. Think about who we're talking about. Oh,
mister Sike's touchdowns last Week's right? Yeah, that's great. You
weren't playing a real legitimate You weren't even playing a
real legitimate NFL team, let alone.

Speaker 3 (02:31:38):
You don't want The Broncos will fire their DC after
they see the Jaguars like the Jets did.

Speaker 1 (02:31:43):
No, because their DC and their defense is good.

Speaker 3 (02:31:47):
Brian Schottenheimer's team is hosting Jim Harbaugh's team.

Speaker 1 (02:31:50):
What do you got?

Speaker 2 (02:31:50):
I'm gonna take the Cowboys to to outscore in a shootout. Okay,
justin Herbert's will be gone, non San Diego Chargers.

Speaker 3 (02:32:02):
The Cowboys have some defensive players that can get to herbs.
And that's not even about that Cowboys are favored still,
it's a favorite. It's just about a shootout, okay over
unders forty nine and a half, So you'll be You
play the Cowboys a lot, so that'll do them.

Speaker 2 (02:32:15):
Last week I probably wouldn't have been zero to five again. Honestly,
I should just be like forfeited. After the last two weeks.
I think we're running.

Speaker 3 (02:32:23):
We'll have this going on another couple of weeks where
if both Josh and I miss every game we pick
over a three week period, you could get close if
I went five and oh each of those weeks correct
and then of course the Texans hosting the Raiders.

Speaker 1 (02:32:38):
Line hasn't changed all week.

Speaker 3 (02:32:39):
The Raiders haven't said anything official about Gino Smith starting,
but it definitely looks like he will. Thirty seven and
a half is the over under. Texans are favored by
fourteen and a half. You don't have to make your
stone cold lock right here, right in this moment, but
the Texans will win as easily as they did a
week ago, less easily as they did a week ago.

Speaker 1 (02:32:57):
Or they're taking the l who's.

Speaker 2 (02:32:58):
The guy that does like the and he goes smash
They're gonna smash the Raiders.

Speaker 1 (02:33:04):
Somebody who's named no way, anybody knows, but a lot
of people have probably watched, and that's political stuff. I think.
Actually it's not even sports, it is. I think, so.

Speaker 3 (02:33:15):
Well, whatever you say, we got Rockets basketball fall coming
up next. We have rockets launch bad for you. AC's
got that Rockets countdown for you. I've got that MT,
and I will take you through pels rockets right here
on your home for Rockets Basketball Sports Talk seven ninety

Speaker 5 (02:33:32):
Eight